heart of heartlands lessons
Teaching and learning is the heart of what we do at Heartlands. This year we launched The Heart of the Heartlands lesson which is what you will see in great lessons in our school – our principles of learning in practice.
BINGO! Marking
4TH MAY 2018
Niamh Martin explains how Bingo pen help teachers with formative feedback and workload.
In a writing heavy subject like English, there is the temptation to mark everything a student writes – this is neither practical nor productive for both teachers and students alike. Whilst marking comes with the territory of teaching, it has also been noted as the single biggest contributor to teachers’ unsustainable workload in the 2014 Workload Challenge. Since then the Oxford research review entitled “A Marked Improvement” has highlighted ways to reduce the marking mountain without affecting students’ progress.
Here are some of the ways we have implemented smarter marking techniques in English this year:
End of the Tick and Flick
Firstly, we have moved away from the ‘tick and flick approach’. The Oxford report concludes that this form of marking “could be reduced without any negative effect on student progress”. We also aim to avoid generic praise and instead use stamps for merits, targets met, saying well-done, etc. A written “well done” or “good effort” might feel like it’s not time consuming, but multiplied over several sets of books this can really clock up the minutes without adding much impact.
Avoid over-marking
Over-marking can take the responsibility away from students, reduce their motivation and make them less resilient. In English, bingo pens are used as an effective and time-efficient way to light and deep mark students’ books. It helps to avoid the repetitiveness of re-writing the same comments in several students’ books.
Once you have identified the main areas of concern, bingo pens can be used to create colour codes for each specific WWW and EBI. These are stamped in the students’ books underneath the piece of work being marked. The colour key is then shared with the class and students write in their own WWW and EBI comments. This allows them to fully engage with their EBI, which can also be linked to the different Assessment Objectives from exam mark schemes for Y10 / Y11 students.
Students' response to feedback
Despite all the latest techniques, marking undoubtedly takes time and it is something that cannot be avoided. To make your marking worthwhile and meaningful, students must be given an appropriate amount of time to respond and make progress. Once I have marked a piece of work, I ensure the following lesson is solely dedicated to students engaging with their EBIs, and making improvements based on them. students can act upon this EBI in a wide range of ways during Focused Improvement Time. This can be through teacher modelling of a sample response, independent work, working in groups of students with the same EBI to help share ideas, or being paired-up based on a contrasting EBI, so both students can support each other during FIT.
Articles of interest regarding marking:
Heartlands High School, Station Road, Wood Green, London, N22 7ST
Contact: Mari Williams, mari.williams@heartlands.haringey.sch.uk | www.heartlands.haringey.sch.uk