Marking student work is an important part of teaching. It provides feedback to students, allows teachers to differentiate instruction, and helps with planning. The document outlines several strategies for effective marking, including marking all student work at least once a week, using correction codes, choosing exemplar work to share with classmates, and giving numbered feedback questions for students to answer. The goal of marking is to improve student learning by identifying and addressing errors or gaps in understanding. It should also be a manageable task for teachers.

1. I Love
Marking
No, really.

3. ‘The most important thing you do
as a teacher.’
Phil Beadle
‘Marking is an act of love.’
David Didau

4. Why?
• ‘Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice
makes permanent.’ Doug Lemov
• If you don’t mark and at least read
EVERY word they write, then you are
embedding bad habits.
• ‘Perfect Practice makes perfect.’
Vince Lombardi

5. My Classroom

6. Mark every day
(if possible)
• Class jotters on pupil desks
• Cup of tea
• Get marking…
• Every jotter at least once a week

7. Marking is…
• Feedback
• Differentiation
• Planning

8. Ten Minutes of Gritty Editing
1. Use the correction code on
page 12 of your diary to
correct errors
2. Use a dictionary or thesaurus
if necessary.
3. If you finish, change three
words of your choice or add
in three words.
Rule 1: you must remain silent
Rule 2: you must not stop working
Rule 3: you can ask only one question
Rule 4: that question must be written on a post-it note; then you put
your hand up

9. The best three
• Collect in work of class
• Read through only, no marking.
• Using the success criteria set, choose the best
three.
• Photocopy them and give a set of three to each
group.
• Group try to explain why these three have been
chosen, re-emphasing the success criteria.
• Have another go…

10. Anonymous Feedback
1 • Excellent use of dialogue throughout
• You managed to include two minor sentences in your
opening
• I don’t see a simile here
2 • Good use of first person narration in paragraph one
• Your adjectives add to the tension of the story
• Can you see where you’ve missed a question mark?
3 • Your use of emotive language in the second paragraph is
excellent
• The colourful imagery works really well here.
• Your punctuation of dialogue needs to be improved.

11. Numbered questions
• As you read, in the margin write a circled number
where you see problems.
• At the end of the work, write that number with a
question (ALWAYS A QUESTION) and leave
enough space for them to write a detailed
answer.
• On return, in class, students spend a period
answering the questions.
• Then and only then can they think about
redrafting.
• Ensuring that they have acted on your feedback.

12. Exam Practice
• In English, we have Close Reading/ Interpretation
exercises in ALL years
• But relevant to all subjects
• While marking, make sure you give the grade like
this: 1/2 4/4 2/5 etc.
• When you hand the papers back, allow time – a
whole lesson? – for students to go and find someone
who got a a better mark than them.
• Learn from others.
• It is the conversation about how they got those
answers which is more powerful than teacher
feedback

13. What is the point of marking?
• Feedback?
• Differentiation?
• Planning?
• The best way to get to know what your
pupils have learned

14. What is the point of marking?
• Pick up on sloppy presentation from the start
• A genuine understanding of them as learners
• You don’t work harder, you work smarter
• If you spend more time on feedback than they
do, you need to stop. NOW!

16. Great resources
• How to Teach by Phil Beadle
• The Hidden Lives of Learners by Graham
Nuthall
• Visible Learning and the Science of How We
Learn by John Hattie