Written Feedback
Yes, we mean marking. Obviously this is really important, but we don't think it's the most effective way of developing children’s learning. It can be pretty time-consuming and it can be difficult to explain the subtleties of how to improve writing in a few comments. Still, if you're a teacher you're going to spend some time marking, so here are our key points to make it as effective as possible:
1. It matters when you do it. Don’t wait until the end of a piece of work. By then it is too late. For there to be any point at all to marking, it has to have an impact, it has to help a child learn something. Instead, perhaps we should think about marking and feedback like a set of sieves of increasingly smaller sizes.
The first stage is a quick look and feedback. This is where you can make sure that what someone has produced is their best effort and get them to straightaway check whether they’ve done what they were supposed to, whether they’ve used simple punctuation properly, whether they’ve misspelt the name of the protagonist throughout, etc. You can read a bit more about how you might structure this in our first impressions section.
Then the class have the chance to make some changes.
The next stage is peer assessment with a partner or a close look together as a class at one or two pieces of writing, making some comments or suggestions that most of the class can act on.
Then the class have the chance to make some changes.
The next stage is to take in these first drafts and actually mark them.
Then the class have the chance to make some changes.
The last step is to look at the final draft. If they’ve made the changes you (and their peers) have suggested, it should be pretty good and all it needs is some praise and maybe a suggestion for extension next time. If they haven’t sorted it out, then some one-to-one feedback should help them to develop their work. Either way, they’ll end up with a great piece of work- hooray!
2. Do it less often, but properly. Much better to spend some time marking written work once or twice a unit and do a really thorough job, than whizz through ticking away and not help anyone to get better at writing. As with everything, it’s up to you (and your school’s marking policy), but we recommend marking:
-Every spelling mistake and every misuse of punctuation and grammar. So sorry, but it’s the only way children learn to do everything properly. It’s often argued that seeing loads of mistakes highlighted is dispiriting for children. It probably is, but not a dispiriting as getting to the end of Y6 and be still making those mistakes. And, on the flip side, it’s incredibly heartening to look through your book and see less and less pen all over your work as you are getting better. It's also worth keeping a bit of paper next to you while you’re doing it to jot down any common mistakes. Once something hits critical mass, you can teach it to the class again.
-Set the children targets at the end. Two or three things to address in the next draft is a manageable amount of things to put right/improve.
-Add some praise. Everyone likes to know they’ve done some thing right. Better still, jot down some of these things on your scrap of paper as you go. You can then share them with the class later- it saves you writing it all down. More importantly, because it's public, everyone else will know they've done well.
At every stage, what you learn about what they can and can't do feeds straight back into your planning.
1. It matters when you do it. Don’t wait until the end of a piece of work. By then it is too late. For there to be any point at all to marking, it has to have an impact, it has to help a child learn something. Instead, perhaps we should think about marking and feedback like a set of sieves of increasingly smaller sizes.
The first stage is a quick look and feedback. This is where you can make sure that what someone has produced is their best effort and get them to straightaway check whether they’ve done what they were supposed to, whether they’ve used simple punctuation properly, whether they’ve misspelt the name of the protagonist throughout, etc. You can read a bit more about how you might structure this in our first impressions section.
Then the class have the chance to make some changes.
The next stage is peer assessment with a partner or a close look together as a class at one or two pieces of writing, making some comments or suggestions that most of the class can act on.
Then the class have the chance to make some changes.
The next stage is to take in these first drafts and actually mark them.
Then the class have the chance to make some changes.
The last step is to look at the final draft. If they’ve made the changes you (and their peers) have suggested, it should be pretty good and all it needs is some praise and maybe a suggestion for extension next time. If they haven’t sorted it out, then some one-to-one feedback should help them to develop their work. Either way, they’ll end up with a great piece of work- hooray!
2. Do it less often, but properly. Much better to spend some time marking written work once or twice a unit and do a really thorough job, than whizz through ticking away and not help anyone to get better at writing. As with everything, it’s up to you (and your school’s marking policy), but we recommend marking:
-Every spelling mistake and every misuse of punctuation and grammar. So sorry, but it’s the only way children learn to do everything properly. It’s often argued that seeing loads of mistakes highlighted is dispiriting for children. It probably is, but not a dispiriting as getting to the end of Y6 and be still making those mistakes. And, on the flip side, it’s incredibly heartening to look through your book and see less and less pen all over your work as you are getting better. It's also worth keeping a bit of paper next to you while you’re doing it to jot down any common mistakes. Once something hits critical mass, you can teach it to the class again.
-Set the children targets at the end. Two or three things to address in the next draft is a manageable amount of things to put right/improve.
-Add some praise. Everyone likes to know they’ve done some thing right. Better still, jot down some of these things on your scrap of paper as you go. You can then share them with the class later- it saves you writing it all down. More importantly, because it's public, everyone else will know they've done well.
At every stage, what you learn about what they can and can't do feeds straight back into your planning.
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To find out more about marking, you might want to read the section in Phil Beadle's How to Teach. We couldn't recommend it highly enough. |
