Mab’s Cross Community Primary School

 

 

 

 

POLICY

FOR

MARKING AND

 ORAL FEEDBACK
MARKING POLICY

Introduction

 

In order to ensure consistency and standardisation in marking we believe that a Marking Policy is essential, especially in terms of transfer of pupils from year to year or staff teaching more than one group.

 

This policy gives guidance to staff on the purpose, types and frequency of marking.

All marking should have a clear purpose for either the child or the teacher depending on the learning objective.

 

Purpose of marking

 

• To acknowledge effort and attainment
• To assess performance against learning objectives.
• To enable staff to apply the marking of work consistently throughout the school.
• To inform the teacher of a child’s progress and needs for future planning.
• To provide motivation and constructive feedback for the children.
• To ensure that future learning can be targeted appropriately and pupils helped to make progress.
• To promote self-assessment where difficulties and mistakes can be recognised and to encourage independent learning.
• To encourage them to accept help/guidance from others.
• To raise standards of learning within the school.
• To demonstrate the value of a child’s work and to raise the self esteem of the child whenever possible.

 

Marking Process

 

• Marking should relate to the ability of the child.
• All pupils will display marking criteria in their English amd mathematics books.
• Marking criteria will also be displayed in the classroom for quick reference.
• Teachers, Teaching Assistants and pupils are allowed to mark work within the school. Parents may mark their child’s work at home.
• Marking should be carried out in the presence of the child whenever possible, otherwise before the next lesson in that subject.
• Time should be given at the beginning of the next lesson in that subject for children to look back at marked work and comments made, and to correct work.
• Depending on the subject, work may be marked orally or in written form. More practical subjects such as P.E., Technology or Art lend themselves to a more oral approach.
• There should be regular opportunities for collaborative assessment and evaluation through marking/talking or learning partners with the teacher modelling the process through shared assessment of a piece of work.
• All work should be checked for mistakes, whenever possible, encouraging children to become more independent and responsible for their work.
• Pupils need to fully understand what they will learn in a lesson to encourage self evaluation.

 

Comments

 

Verbal and written comments on or about all children’s work, regardless of age, are an extremely important factor in ensuring individual progress.

 

Comments should:

 

• be positive, praise and recognise effort, e.g…a well planned investigation” or “…..clearly presented results”;
• contain personal comments, where a teacher responds to the content of the work, such as, “I was very interested in the setting of the story”;
• be constructive or diagnostic where teachers make children aware of what they need to do in order to improve their performance. These should relate to learning objectives or National Curriculum Level Indicators (when applicable) and reflect the skill and understanding of the child.

 

Such comments provide a record of the child’s development. They may also form an effective record of a teacher’s assessments.

 

 

 

Incentives

 

Success, effort, improvement and achievement should be rewarded by appropriate comments, awarding team points, stickers, smiley faces, privileges etc.

 

 

Equal Opportunities/Special Needs

 

• This policy reflects the school’s policies for Special Needs and Equal Opportunities.

 

• Marking should be appropriate to the ability of the child. Modifications to this policy may be needed.

 

 

 

Marking Code      Mathematics

 

Tick if correct

Cross if totally wrong

Circle if only one digit is incorrect in a larger number.

 

Support                                                                               S (and initial)

Oral Feedback given                         OF

 

 

Marking Code     Written Work

Spelling mistake, underline

Insert missing punctuation marks in a circle                ?

Incorrect punctuation mark/case                          O(circle error)

Missed words or additional word to improve text:        insert     

Good word, phrase, use of punctuation etc.           at the side

Unclear meaning                                                             ?

New paragraph needed                                                   //

Support                                                                          S (and initial)

Oral Feedback given                                   OF

 

 

Marking Grades (KS2)

The school grading system will apply as a minimum to all English and mathematics work. Children are graded on the following scale.

 

Effort

 

E	Excellent	You have produced high quality work, kept on task and shown interest and enthusiasm.
G	Good	You have worked quite well
S	Satisfactory	You have worked steadily but have avoided really trying hard.
I	Need to improve	You have not settled, been disruptive or avoided putting in the effort required to improve.

 

Attainment

 

1	Above average	You have an excellent understanding of the work done. You have fully met your learning objective.
2	Satisfactory	You have some understanding of the work done. You have not fully met the learning objective.
3	Below average	You have not understood the work done. You have not met the learning objective.