Less is More – Marking with a Purpose

This weekend I had the pleasure of presenting at #PedagooHampshire16.

What a delight it was.

I was completely blown away by the number of people present in the room when I presented on the topic of Less is More – Marking with a Purpose. Flabbergasted even.

Martyn even posted how it was standing room only…

Standing room only @MrsHumanities #pedagoohampshire16 making feedback more effective pic.twitter.com/demQrSFCZ0 — Martyn Reah (@MartynReah) 17 September 2016

For someone as introverted as I, this was a majorly proud moment. To be standing in front of so many people presenting on a topic I’m enthused by and be able to speak to a room full of my peers without the disco-leg going was triumphant.

The first time I spoke was at TMHistoryIcons, I loved it but nerves got the better of me that time. This time I felt confident, my confidence grew and grew as more and more people arrived. Marking is clearly a very topical topic.

Anyway I digress, the main emphasis of my presentation was that feedback should not equal marking. Marking should be used to inform planning, but feedback in whatever format is what’s important to help students to progress and reach ‘expected’ outcomes. Marking and providing written feedback should not take over our lives and that there are a range of ways we can assess learning, monitor progress and feedback to students to help them to achieve and still maintain a work-life balance.

I firstly talked through the rational behind the presentation which comes from the Eliminating unnecessary workload around marking from the Independent Teacher Workload Review Group. 

Next we discussed the issues surrounding marking were.

Followed by the argument of quality vs. quantity.

I led participants into considering what can be done to mark less but make feedback more effective? A few ideas were discussed, particularly dot marking (see below) and school wide policy change. 

In order to give those that attended the sessions something to go away with I went through a number of ideas for marking, feedback and DIRT. Some you may have seen before, others are new additions to the selection.

My presentation finished with a look at the 3 pillars of effective marking – Meaningful, Manageable and Motivating. 

There’s numerous bits I discussed that wasn’t on the slides, such departmental policies rather than whole school policies or the role of feedback in progress and marking in planning, so if you’d like to hear more feel free to get in touch.

Now for what you’re probably  looking for, here’s a copy of my presentation from the weekend. 

Please feel free to use it in CPD sessions and share with colleagues. Let’s promote a shift to #feedbackNOTmarking.

So in line with #pedagoohampshire, the one change I’m going to make is sharing my resources within my school community.