ANCHORSHOLME PRIMARY SCHOOL

 

MARKING POLICY

 

Everyone in the school is encouraged to develop to his or her full academic and creative potential and to think, question, discuss and evaluate.

The school promotes personal and social development. Everyone is encouraged to join in a wide variety of experiences in addition to those associated with the classroom. The pursuit of ideals and qualities such as enthusiasm is encouraged.

Co-operation and care for others is fostered. Everyone is encouraged to explore his or her responsibilities at home, at school and in the local and global environment.

The school is staffed and resourced with this in mind and the curriculum is planned to offer the widest possible range of opportunities. Constructive parent involvement in the life of the school is encouraged and all parents are welcome to contact and to visit the school as they wish.

At Anchorsholme Primary School, we strongly believe that marking and feedback assists and supports pupils, promoting a sense of value and motivation, which informs and enhances their learning, identifying ways in which they are able to take their learning further.

 

OFSTED state:

"Learning is well supported when pupils are aware that they are trying to achieve, in particular pieces of work, and when, through careful marking, they have a clear picture about what they have done well and where they need to do better next time."

 

PUPROSES OF MARKING

• To improve learning
• Encourage pupils
• Assessment of what a child has learned/understood
• Tracking of progress
• Recognition of achievement
• Inform planning
• Development of next steps to be taken

 

Principles of Marking

• provides opportunity for prompt and regular written or spoken dialogue with the child;
• teachers and children are clear about the learning objectives of a task and the criteria for success;
• teachers provide constructive suggestions about ways in which the child might improve his/her work;
• teachers agree next steps with the child;
• teachers follow up the agreed targets with the child to see how much progress has been made;

 

Shared Principles

The marking of children's work, either written or verbal, should be regular and frequent. Marking procedures and marking standards should be consistently applied across school.

 

• teachers are selective in the aspects they choose to comment on;

• teachers comment on specific, positive aspects of the assignment;
• teachers recognise effort as well as quality, not in a vague or generalised way, but linking effort to specific skills or understanding;
• teachers use the information gained together with other information to adjust future teaching plans

Ground Rules for Giving Feedback

• It must relate to the learning intention
• success criteria is in order to assess against
• strengths are identified firstly followed by areas to develop
• examples from the work will be used in feedback

 

Oral  feedback

• 1-1, group, whole class - this is ongong

Quality Teacher Marking

Quality teacher marking will be against the learning objective, which will be displayed throughout the lesson and will follow the principle of identifying success and improvement - "3 stars and a wish." On occasion a summative approach will be more appropriate.

Frequency

Quality teacher marking takes place once each week for Literacy and Numeracy and for two pieces of work per half term for the foundation subjects and RE

For speaking and listening activities, maths games etc a record of the objective and success criteria will be placed in the child's book. This work requires self/peer/teacher assessment.  Either adult or pupil will make comments. This means a record of work carried out is evident and the same importance will be placed on speaking & listening etc Photographs may be placed if desired in order to identify a record of the work carried out - in response to creative curriculum

When responding using quality teacher marking marked to objective and success criteria. The marker will NOT respond to everything, for example spelling unless stated.

 

• Any colour may be used to mark as long as it is able to be seen
• Positive elements will be highlighted with a highlighter of any colour
• Target/ next step will be introduced by using *
• Time will be given to the child at the next opportunity to respond to the target or written information

 

Acknowledgement marking

Acknowledgement marking will take place when the work carried out is not going to be quality teacher marked.  This will be acknowledgement that the work has been read will be with either a stamp or teacher initials. The staff will also use the traffic light system to indicate where they believe the children to be.

Self or peer marking/oral feedback

It is important that as part of Assessment for Learning the children peer assess of self assess their work. This will be against the success criteria or Learning Objective, using success and improvement approach. This will be clearly identified with one of the following stamps

• Self assessed
• Peer assessed
• Teacher assessed

Children will be taught to respect the work of others and be mindful of working carefully in the books of others. The children will also use the traffic light system to indicate where they believe their peers or themselves to be. The traffic light system is displayed in all classrooms.

All children will be aware of the learning objective and the success criteria at the outset of the lesson and this will be referred to as they move through the activity. Marking will be monitored regularly for consistency and will be reviewed annually by staff and responses from children.

Layout of Work

It is important that the children work to the best of their ability in all areas. Each piece of work requires a date that is underlined accurately. Work in mathematics should be carried out in pencil.

 

Monitoring

Samples of children's work from each class will be monitored termly to ensure the marking policy is consistently applied.

The desired outcomes from this policy, are improvement in the children's learning and greater clarity among children, staff and parents concerning children's achievement and progress.

The performance indicators will be:

• An improvement in children's attainment
• Teacher/parent/child testimony concerning the usefulness of marking/success criteria
• Planning informing future learning.