Marking Crisis


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Ross Morrison McGill founded @TeacherToolkit in 2010, and today, he is one of the 'most followed educators'on social media in the world. In 2015, he was nominated as one of the '500 Most Influential People in Britain' by The Sunday Times as a result of...
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How we can address marking workload for teachers and schools?

In February 2016, I met up with @Urban_Teacher at home to discuss teaching, particularly workload and well-being. In this post I offer my thoughts on the workload (marking) crisis and provide some solutions.

 

Common Sense:

At the school in which I work, Power from the Floor (as part of our own CPD series) offered a common-sense approach to whole-school marking. The 5-point plan considered the following – consulted by all our staff:

  1. To develop high quality assessment.
  2. To develop diagnostic feedback across all subjects.
  3. To approach marking from a realistic, workload perspective.
  4. To keep in mind a common-sense approach.
  5. To ensure we are getting it right for students and teachers from the outset.

Visit the CPD session here and download the resource.

Workload Consistency:

We then developed our Learning Policy (mark section), consulting and tweaking components with our staff:

  1. Teachers must have a secure overview of the starting points, progress and context of all.
  2. Marking must be primarily formative, may be selective, and include use of yellow box methodology which is clear about what students must act upon.
  3. Marking and feedback must be regular.
  4. The marking code must be used.

We reviewed the progress we have made this year in our MER cycle. No learning walks, no graded observations … and soon the introduction of our Coaching Model once we abandon formal observations altogether.

Video:

In this video clip, I share my thoughts on the marking crisis, offering some workload strategies for schools and teachers.

There will be some more content to follow over the Easter period. I hope you find the video thoughtful and useful …

TT.

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