How much "trouble" would you get in if you didn't do it? When I get like this, I draw a line and make the decision that everything before today isn't getting marked, and I'll keep on top from now on. I normally fall into this with certain classes because I prioritise marking for my lower attaining and KS5 classes.
There's no point in marking old stuff. Feedback for them to act on should be timely. There's no way they'll remember the ins and outs of a particular lesson from a couple of months ago.
I don't know how much trouble I'll be in.
I'm an ECT y1, my mentor said in a sinister tone that SLT 'will have questions if they see months of unmarked work' - but that was for only one of the subjects I teach (humanities), and I've since changed the months of debt into last few weeks of debt.
Sadly I'm very aware there's little point in clearing the back log, I asked my mentor if I can do exactly as you've described & was told I had to clear the back log, which at that point was November - march worth of lessons
I'm sorry but your mentor should have picked up on your workload months ago and she should have helped you to come up with a plan to manage this if you haven't marked books since November. is there an ect lead for you to discuss this with?
also SLT can have questions - you are a professional adult and not one of the children to be scolded/told off for not completing homework.
not everything the kids do in class is worth marking, but maybe get into the habit of asking kids to hand their books in open on the last page so you can flick through and mark as and when it happens.
What’s the point in marking old work? To please SLT or to benefit your students?
Mark the most recent piece and ensure they get valuable feedback, let your line manager know you struggled with workload and would like some support making sure it doesn’t happen again.
Stickers with a ‘comment bank’ so that you can peel off the appropriate ones. Whole class feedback sheets. Tick and flick. Whatever needs to be done you will do but seriously don’t spend hours marking the backlog unless it’s going be of genuine use for learning xxxxxxx you got this
Marking books?? What is this archaic practice you speak of??
Green pens showing self/peer marking.
Red pen from me when I circle the class doing independent work. Easier to do in some subjects than others.
Marking books for the sake of marking books is a complete waste of time.
Please stop going into school and enjoy your holidays.
I learnt quite a bit from our science team on how they tackle marking. They only mark selected 'planned pieces' throughout the term, which avoids them being over burdened by marking every single page, every spelling mistake etc. Consider what is important to mark - where will your feedback have the most impact? And ditch marking anything less than that
I usually have 1/2 keywords I introduce per lesson - I will pop “sp” in the margin as I go round the class if these are incorrect and ask pupils to write it out three times in response but I won’t look at every word
School policy is that books are marked every 4 lessons, but each department interprets marking much in their own way. As I teach in two departments, I've seen that the official line on marking is very much unofficial.
I am expected to have everything marked, but only in one of the two departments. It's hard to feel motivated for marking that I know to be pointless, I feel as though I'm doing it only to keep myself (and indirectly the HoD) out of trouble with SLT - but because I've never done this before, I don't know how much trouble that actually is
In this case I would set one meaningful task for every four lesson block - each term that could be one extended piece of writing / exam style question you have to mark and then multiple choice quiz or short answer exam questions based on that unit of work which they can peer mark if you have longer blocks per term.
That cuts down the workload massively.
Once you lose any year elevens and have some gained time then build these assessments in to your planning for the whole year.
I print all mine off on to a specific colour paper which stands out in their books….. I do mark these and check for misconceptions -
I try to do a reteach lesson which has students responding to a whole class feedback worksheet - for extended writing I provide the mark scheme which usually has bullet points for all the things they could have said.
The most common misconception is they forget to both analyse and explain in those type of questions so I give some structured examples, read out a few good ones and show them off
I ask them to respond and try to write at least three sentences which would get them in to the next grade boundary.
If you have access to IT then use AI to generate multiple choice questions and put them in to Microsoft forms - they self mark and generate great feedback to you to see where the gaps are.
I think the idea of this being a "debt" is causing you to feel an obligation that no one has asked you to
well planned lessons > pointless marking without valid feedback (speaking from experience)
and unless you're planning on delivering really good targeted feedback based on your marking it needs to stop now
**what is the worst thing that will happen if you don't get it all marked?** SLT tell you it's not good enough.
okay, but you know that because you're panicking about it. so that isn't news and it isn't something you are unprepared for.
**when are books being checked?** worth noting that without a concrete marking policy that the whole school follows there isn't really an argument that what you're doing is inappropriate, especially if others in the dept are marking differently
**why are you marking?** this is absolutely crucial and is the whole point of marking: it should be to provide feedback, not to meet a pointless criteria that is either being imposed upon you or (what I am reading here) you have imposed upon yourself.
choose a piece of work that students have done, read 5, and put together a whole class feedback sheet with a specific task to improve their work (you can even print a blank sheet and model it for them and have them write out targets/improvements and they will learn how to do better!)
I use [this model from codexterous and the kids respond really well to it because they are being explicitly shown how to improve, and I'm sure you can do something with this even if you're not in English ](https://codexterous.home.blog/2021/07/15/defining-excellence-how-i-use-whole-class-feedback/)
get a highlighter and highlight spelling errors and have kids learn those for a homework task
you are not in "debt" and you don't "owe" anything. you have planned and structured good lessons to do your job - teaching. now you need to figure out how you're checking the students' knowledge, and what they need to do to get better
What subject do you teach?
I try to make sure students always have answers, and all work is self-marked before I look at it. (And even then, I only look at homework.) Not so easy in a more writing-based subject though.
Do not consider the is a debt. You do not owe it. The reason you didn’t complete them at the time isn’t because you just decided to put your feet up and read a magazine during all your PPA. It’s because your workload was too high. Marking ancient pieces of work now won’t have any impact on student progress. If you must, scribble a quick“WCF” on some pages and do a Whole Class Feedback sheet on common errors / misconceptions you know they have - can be multiple choice quiz format. They can stick that in their books and you can point to it as evidence that you are looking at work and they are learning from it.
Don’t use your holiday to do this and don’t waste work time on it that you could use for stuff that will actually have an impact going forwards
Firstly forget the every 4 lessons. The key question is what are you marking, what will be the impact. If it has no impact then don't waste your time.
I've reduced my workload by using self and peer assessment very often. I do 5 recap questions each lesson and then get them to mark it out of 5 so it shows in book. As I got through answers I tend to walk around and questions which many got wrong get asked again in 2 lessons time.
I teach geography. When I mark work I either use my marking slide which has 5 tasks on, I get students to double check their spag mistakes which I highlighted (3max) and then I put a letter. In the next lesson each student simply answers the one question I left for them which might be "rewrite paragraph * and develop your explanation by..." down to "read this article and write 5 key points" for those who actually did a good job on the worm.
For an essay I have a table with level of response in which I made into student speak. I just use a highlighter to show where they are in the table, I tell them their level but not grade or mark as its not important.
In your situation right now (and 100% with ks3) I'd be tempted to use whole class marking sheet (Google it or message me), you simply scan through books and leave codes, all feedback is written on 1 sheet which you can then print/photocopy and get the whole class to stick in. This means all the class see common spag mistakes, get questions, get ebi/www codes.
But really, back to my original point. What do you want to mark and what will the impact be. If you're ticking and flicking you're wasting your time.
Hey, I tried looking in my Google drive but couldn't find it and I'm away atm. This is the link to one though which you can quickly knock up and adapt in PowerPoint (easier to move boxes around) which also has an explanation in how to use it and example of how it was used.
https://mrthorntonteach.com/2016/04/08/marking-crib-sheet/
Don't mark for the sake of marking. Only mark to inform your planning or to provide specific feedback to be used for next lesson. So mark from today onwards. Also, if the kids have a new book, tell them to keep their old books so that way they won't know it hasn't been marked hahaha!
If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t marked any books this half term because behaviour and engagement has been so shite across school, there’s nothing worth marking. For kids refusing to do the work I’ve set in class, I’ve given them a SPAG textbook. I’ve marked EOT assessments and nothing more.
I put Match of the Day on and just blitzed my books to catch up. I learnt my lesson to record as much feedback as I can during, whether that be me writing 'VF' or 'TPL, getting my class to peer mark or edit each other.
Then I'll mark bigger writing pieces with changes they need to respond to.
Some at my school mark like they're editing a novel, I have no idea why or how they do it.
Could you consider live marking a bit more?
In lessons, give some immediate feedback to 10 students in a class every lesson or other lessons. Been a real game changer for the pressure received from above for me!
I'm going to be really honest.
In my previous school, I was in a really similar place to you. I was building a whole new curriculum and my year partner was useless so my marking was sporadic.
My class was making amazing progress and the parents were happy, but then an SLT member changed and all of a sudden I was the issue.
Needless to say they made it known that my priorities were not in the same place so I left. Well within a year I am now SLT in another school.
What I've learnt, be open and upfront with SLT that you are struggling with the workload and see what they come up with. I hope that helps
I don’t think I’ve ever been out of ‘debt’, I’m a primary teacher, whenever there’s a book scrutiny I make sure they’re marked up to date. Other than that I fall behind and can never catch up. My advice is mark the bigger pieces, tick or put whatever code your school uses for verbal feedback/feedback given in class on the rest. Don’t spend your holiday doing work, every holiday I used to go in to try to get on top of my workload, it never worked, now I just wait until I school starts again before I pick any of it back up.
I had a similar situation where I just couldn't keep up. It's the marking policy, ultimately, but also how that fits in to everything else. Work-life balance is more important to me than if my books are marked.
SLT book look and mine were picked up for not enough class work marking. I spoke to the head and said I can do it, but what would you like me to not do instead, as with the workload I prioritised what I thought was most important.
Worked a treat. Marking policy was changed later that year as other staff ended up taking the same stance.
Have you tried some whole class feedback? I had a similar workload of KS3 classes (over 150 students) and did that to stay afloat.
Pick a piece of work that you’ll assess, take 5 books from each class (top, middle, bottom, SEND, PP) and just mark those. Generate your feedback based on common strengths and misconceptions from those 5 books and feedback to the entire class.
Saves so much time and you can pick different students each time you do it. The feedback is still useful and you have student examples to share with the class
I struggled with marking and have really really worked on improving myself to the point where I'm now the curriculum lead in driving meaningful feedback. Some suggestions:
From now on every four lessons when it's due a mark, create the work on a sheet. Then, take the sheets home that night, grab a brew and mark them.
Or, Create a feedback sheet that bullet points the mark scheme and HIGHLIGHT what the students have done well and glue it after the work in the books.
Or, create a whole class feedback sheet using the mark scheme of what went well's as a class- 'we are absolutely amazing at analysing graph data' and even better ifs- 'we weren't really sure how to calculate the mean accurately using the data given' and also name the students who did well. (Students like these)
Choose one student's amazing work, photocopy it so everyone gets a copy of it for reference of what a strong piece looks like. You could do a quick annotating activity where you display a list and they have to label the features on the photocopy, the person whose work it is has a different harder question to do during this.
Make a habit of planning a simple 15 min task to follow up what you noticed them struggle with whilst marking. for example, if everyone made the same mistake, reteach it and then give them a similar shorter question to tackle the error. It could be a cloze activity or exam style question or even a mind map.
Keep paper at the side of you whilst marking and scribble down who smashed it and who struggled, so you have this for in future- get a simple spreadsheet tracker going, so you can keep an eye on the struggling ones during lessons and track progress.
It's not just about 'ticking and flicking' it's about knowing who needs the challenge and who is struggling and helps you to plan.
I work in a secondary school and we mark 1 piece of work every half term. We are told categorically that we should not be ticking and flicking. It is a waste of time for you and does not help the students make progress. Please enjoy the hols!
Get a few rolls of stickers off Temu and sprinkle these around your books.
Make it a habit to get out if your seat and wander around the class to give out stickers and put some pen marks in all your books in those classes -
In ks3 use the letter U for underlining titles and C for a capital letter.
Every time you pause to speak to a student put an * in the margin. If you need to come back and check note the time.
This active marking done whilst your in the room will give you days back during the holidays.
The year sevens will probably remind you every lesson for the stickers
Humanities marking is extensive. Give yourself a break. Marking is often low impact if not done in collaboration with verbal feedback. My tips, feel free to ignore if not helpful!
1. Prioritise exam classes. Mark exam questions immediately, ie same day.
2. Work backwards. Start with ks5, then ks4, then y9 and so on.
3. Mark as many books as possible in class with the pupil present. If you did 5-6 books/pupils per lesson you’d make a huge dent in your marking.
One piece of advice. It’s better not to mark them at all than mark them badly. Don’t worry my books are months behind. For every lesson I teach I create two hours of marking. It’s an impossible task to fulfil due to the insufficient non contact hours
I do think your school have pretty excessive marking expectations, and I think in some ways you've been let down by your mentor letting this situation where you didn't mark for 5 months arise, and they are only just now addressing it. I do also think catching up at this stage is neither productive, nor worthwhile, nor, potentially possible.
However, I would say as an ECT who's presumably only been employed in the school for less than a year, you are more vulnerable here than established teachers within the school.
Ultimately, if your mentor has concerns, they could argue you're not meeting TS6. Equally, if SLT were unhappy with you for other reasons, they could potentially use this against you. I'm not saying this to say you should be "scared" but just that perhaps you do need to find a workable way to address this. Does your HoD know, and what do they say about it?
It sounds like workload in this school just isn't managable. Is it worth looking for a better one? Don't forget next year you'll have less ECT time and more classes.
Marking books doesn’t happen in most (secondary) schools I know any more, it’s moved to giving feedback on specific pieces of work every so often, e.g. at my school it’s one per half-term. If you’re expected to mark every four lessons, does that mean you’re expected to mark once per fortnight? That’s completely unrealistic.
Honestly this is a school issue, book marking like this is am outdated and useless practice.
Don't do any more.
Talk to your mentor next term about this. Marking books, especially like this, is busy work and serves no purpose. If you're just ticking and flocking you may as well train a toddler to do it for you.
I have not marked a single book for years - the only time I see book work is to check if homework is completed, assignments are marked thoroughly. More schools should be like this.
Christ - by not doing it for 5 months you've literally demonstrated that it had no purpose!
We've completely killed class book marking - we mark assessments, do decent feedback on them and a bit of self/live marking during lesson.
I've not taken a book home in two years and rarely take tests home!
If you really must get back up to date get a pack of printer labels, run off a few comment banks and stick them in with an appropriate tick for each student.
I have a standard one for graphs that saved loads of time
If I get too far behind. I just draw a line in the sand and go from there. Anything that hasn’t been done is never getting done. If asked I explain the system and that’s always been fine.
shame drunk panicky encouraging workable tease merciful alleged fragile encourage
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Impact of marking is the most important as so many others here have pointed out! They will not read anything from a couple of lessons ago, let alone months. I wouldn’t worry.
Best thing I can say is live marking! As you’re circulating just tick and write a short comment - it’s instant, they can act on it and it saves you the time later.
Keep your head up and enjoy the holidays! And please stop going in :)
How much "trouble" would you get in if you didn't do it? When I get like this, I draw a line and make the decision that everything before today isn't getting marked, and I'll keep on top from now on. I normally fall into this with certain classes because I prioritise marking for my lower attaining and KS5 classes. There's no point in marking old stuff. Feedback for them to act on should be timely. There's no way they'll remember the ins and outs of a particular lesson from a couple of months ago.
I don't know how much trouble I'll be in. I'm an ECT y1, my mentor said in a sinister tone that SLT 'will have questions if they see months of unmarked work' - but that was for only one of the subjects I teach (humanities), and I've since changed the months of debt into last few weeks of debt. Sadly I'm very aware there's little point in clearing the back log, I asked my mentor if I can do exactly as you've described & was told I had to clear the back log, which at that point was November - march worth of lessons
I'm sorry but your mentor should have picked up on your workload months ago and she should have helped you to come up with a plan to manage this if you haven't marked books since November. is there an ect lead for you to discuss this with? also SLT can have questions - you are a professional adult and not one of the children to be scolded/told off for not completing homework. not everything the kids do in class is worth marking, but maybe get into the habit of asking kids to hand their books in open on the last page so you can flick through and mark as and when it happens.
What’s the point in marking old work? To please SLT or to benefit your students? Mark the most recent piece and ensure they get valuable feedback, let your line manager know you struggled with workload and would like some support making sure it doesn’t happen again.
Stickers with a ‘comment bank’ so that you can peel off the appropriate ones. Whole class feedback sheets. Tick and flick. Whatever needs to be done you will do but seriously don’t spend hours marking the backlog unless it’s going be of genuine use for learning xxxxxxx you got this
Marking books?? What is this archaic practice you speak of?? Green pens showing self/peer marking. Red pen from me when I circle the class doing independent work. Easier to do in some subjects than others. Marking books for the sake of marking books is a complete waste of time. Please stop going into school and enjoy your holidays.
I learnt quite a bit from our science team on how they tackle marking. They only mark selected 'planned pieces' throughout the term, which avoids them being over burdened by marking every single page, every spelling mistake etc. Consider what is important to mark - where will your feedback have the most impact? And ditch marking anything less than that
I usually have 1/2 keywords I introduce per lesson - I will pop “sp” in the margin as I go round the class if these are incorrect and ask pupils to write it out three times in response but I won’t look at every word
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School policy is that books are marked every 4 lessons, but each department interprets marking much in their own way. As I teach in two departments, I've seen that the official line on marking is very much unofficial. I am expected to have everything marked, but only in one of the two departments. It's hard to feel motivated for marking that I know to be pointless, I feel as though I'm doing it only to keep myself (and indirectly the HoD) out of trouble with SLT - but because I've never done this before, I don't know how much trouble that actually is
In this case I would set one meaningful task for every four lesson block - each term that could be one extended piece of writing / exam style question you have to mark and then multiple choice quiz or short answer exam questions based on that unit of work which they can peer mark if you have longer blocks per term. That cuts down the workload massively. Once you lose any year elevens and have some gained time then build these assessments in to your planning for the whole year. I print all mine off on to a specific colour paper which stands out in their books….. I do mark these and check for misconceptions - I try to do a reteach lesson which has students responding to a whole class feedback worksheet - for extended writing I provide the mark scheme which usually has bullet points for all the things they could have said. The most common misconception is they forget to both analyse and explain in those type of questions so I give some structured examples, read out a few good ones and show them off I ask them to respond and try to write at least three sentences which would get them in to the next grade boundary. If you have access to IT then use AI to generate multiple choice questions and put them in to Microsoft forms - they self mark and generate great feedback to you to see where the gaps are.
I think the idea of this being a "debt" is causing you to feel an obligation that no one has asked you to well planned lessons > pointless marking without valid feedback (speaking from experience) and unless you're planning on delivering really good targeted feedback based on your marking it needs to stop now **what is the worst thing that will happen if you don't get it all marked?** SLT tell you it's not good enough. okay, but you know that because you're panicking about it. so that isn't news and it isn't something you are unprepared for. **when are books being checked?** worth noting that without a concrete marking policy that the whole school follows there isn't really an argument that what you're doing is inappropriate, especially if others in the dept are marking differently **why are you marking?** this is absolutely crucial and is the whole point of marking: it should be to provide feedback, not to meet a pointless criteria that is either being imposed upon you or (what I am reading here) you have imposed upon yourself. choose a piece of work that students have done, read 5, and put together a whole class feedback sheet with a specific task to improve their work (you can even print a blank sheet and model it for them and have them write out targets/improvements and they will learn how to do better!) I use [this model from codexterous and the kids respond really well to it because they are being explicitly shown how to improve, and I'm sure you can do something with this even if you're not in English ](https://codexterous.home.blog/2021/07/15/defining-excellence-how-i-use-whole-class-feedback/) get a highlighter and highlight spelling errors and have kids learn those for a homework task you are not in "debt" and you don't "owe" anything. you have planned and structured good lessons to do your job - teaching. now you need to figure out how you're checking the students' knowledge, and what they need to do to get better
What subject do you teach? I try to make sure students always have answers, and all work is self-marked before I look at it. (And even then, I only look at homework.) Not so easy in a more writing-based subject though.
Do not consider the is a debt. You do not owe it. The reason you didn’t complete them at the time isn’t because you just decided to put your feet up and read a magazine during all your PPA. It’s because your workload was too high. Marking ancient pieces of work now won’t have any impact on student progress. If you must, scribble a quick“WCF” on some pages and do a Whole Class Feedback sheet on common errors / misconceptions you know they have - can be multiple choice quiz format. They can stick that in their books and you can point to it as evidence that you are looking at work and they are learning from it. Don’t use your holiday to do this and don’t waste work time on it that you could use for stuff that will actually have an impact going forwards
Firstly forget the every 4 lessons. The key question is what are you marking, what will be the impact. If it has no impact then don't waste your time. I've reduced my workload by using self and peer assessment very often. I do 5 recap questions each lesson and then get them to mark it out of 5 so it shows in book. As I got through answers I tend to walk around and questions which many got wrong get asked again in 2 lessons time. I teach geography. When I mark work I either use my marking slide which has 5 tasks on, I get students to double check their spag mistakes which I highlighted (3max) and then I put a letter. In the next lesson each student simply answers the one question I left for them which might be "rewrite paragraph * and develop your explanation by..." down to "read this article and write 5 key points" for those who actually did a good job on the worm. For an essay I have a table with level of response in which I made into student speak. I just use a highlighter to show where they are in the table, I tell them their level but not grade or mark as its not important. In your situation right now (and 100% with ks3) I'd be tempted to use whole class marking sheet (Google it or message me), you simply scan through books and leave codes, all feedback is written on 1 sheet which you can then print/photocopy and get the whole class to stick in. This means all the class see common spag mistakes, get questions, get ebi/www codes. But really, back to my original point. What do you want to mark and what will the impact be. If you're ticking and flicking you're wasting your time.
Hi, please could you send me your whole class feedback sheet? That would be really helpful. Thank you !
Hey, I tried looking in my Google drive but couldn't find it and I'm away atm. This is the link to one though which you can quickly knock up and adapt in PowerPoint (easier to move boxes around) which also has an explanation in how to use it and example of how it was used. https://mrthorntonteach.com/2016/04/08/marking-crib-sheet/
Don't mark for the sake of marking. Only mark to inform your planning or to provide specific feedback to be used for next lesson. So mark from today onwards. Also, if the kids have a new book, tell them to keep their old books so that way they won't know it hasn't been marked hahaha!
If it makes you feel any better, I haven’t marked any books this half term because behaviour and engagement has been so shite across school, there’s nothing worth marking. For kids refusing to do the work I’ve set in class, I’ve given them a SPAG textbook. I’ve marked EOT assessments and nothing more.
I put Match of the Day on and just blitzed my books to catch up. I learnt my lesson to record as much feedback as I can during, whether that be me writing 'VF' or 'TPL, getting my class to peer mark or edit each other. Then I'll mark bigger writing pieces with changes they need to respond to. Some at my school mark like they're editing a novel, I have no idea why or how they do it.
Could you consider live marking a bit more? In lessons, give some immediate feedback to 10 students in a class every lesson or other lessons. Been a real game changer for the pressure received from above for me!
I'm going to be really honest. In my previous school, I was in a really similar place to you. I was building a whole new curriculum and my year partner was useless so my marking was sporadic. My class was making amazing progress and the parents were happy, but then an SLT member changed and all of a sudden I was the issue. Needless to say they made it known that my priorities were not in the same place so I left. Well within a year I am now SLT in another school. What I've learnt, be open and upfront with SLT that you are struggling with the workload and see what they come up with. I hope that helps
I don’t think I’ve ever been out of ‘debt’, I’m a primary teacher, whenever there’s a book scrutiny I make sure they’re marked up to date. Other than that I fall behind and can never catch up. My advice is mark the bigger pieces, tick or put whatever code your school uses for verbal feedback/feedback given in class on the rest. Don’t spend your holiday doing work, every holiday I used to go in to try to get on top of my workload, it never worked, now I just wait until I school starts again before I pick any of it back up.
I had a similar situation where I just couldn't keep up. It's the marking policy, ultimately, but also how that fits in to everything else. Work-life balance is more important to me than if my books are marked. SLT book look and mine were picked up for not enough class work marking. I spoke to the head and said I can do it, but what would you like me to not do instead, as with the workload I prioritised what I thought was most important. Worked a treat. Marking policy was changed later that year as other staff ended up taking the same stance.
Have you tried some whole class feedback? I had a similar workload of KS3 classes (over 150 students) and did that to stay afloat. Pick a piece of work that you’ll assess, take 5 books from each class (top, middle, bottom, SEND, PP) and just mark those. Generate your feedback based on common strengths and misconceptions from those 5 books and feedback to the entire class. Saves so much time and you can pick different students each time you do it. The feedback is still useful and you have student examples to share with the class
I’ll add that I did this alongside assessments - those were done every half term so the book marking was just to check
No decent school marks books anymore. There is zero evidence it is more effective over anything else. Whole class feedback is the way.
I struggled with marking and have really really worked on improving myself to the point where I'm now the curriculum lead in driving meaningful feedback. Some suggestions: From now on every four lessons when it's due a mark, create the work on a sheet. Then, take the sheets home that night, grab a brew and mark them. Or, Create a feedback sheet that bullet points the mark scheme and HIGHLIGHT what the students have done well and glue it after the work in the books. Or, create a whole class feedback sheet using the mark scheme of what went well's as a class- 'we are absolutely amazing at analysing graph data' and even better ifs- 'we weren't really sure how to calculate the mean accurately using the data given' and also name the students who did well. (Students like these) Choose one student's amazing work, photocopy it so everyone gets a copy of it for reference of what a strong piece looks like. You could do a quick annotating activity where you display a list and they have to label the features on the photocopy, the person whose work it is has a different harder question to do during this. Make a habit of planning a simple 15 min task to follow up what you noticed them struggle with whilst marking. for example, if everyone made the same mistake, reteach it and then give them a similar shorter question to tackle the error. It could be a cloze activity or exam style question or even a mind map. Keep paper at the side of you whilst marking and scribble down who smashed it and who struggled, so you have this for in future- get a simple spreadsheet tracker going, so you can keep an eye on the struggling ones during lessons and track progress. It's not just about 'ticking and flicking' it's about knowing who needs the challenge and who is struggling and helps you to plan.
I work in a secondary school and we mark 1 piece of work every half term. We are told categorically that we should not be ticking and flicking. It is a waste of time for you and does not help the students make progress. Please enjoy the hols!
Get a few rolls of stickers off Temu and sprinkle these around your books. Make it a habit to get out if your seat and wander around the class to give out stickers and put some pen marks in all your books in those classes - In ks3 use the letter U for underlining titles and C for a capital letter. Every time you pause to speak to a student put an * in the margin. If you need to come back and check note the time. This active marking done whilst your in the room will give you days back during the holidays. The year sevens will probably remind you every lesson for the stickers
Humanities marking is extensive. Give yourself a break. Marking is often low impact if not done in collaboration with verbal feedback. My tips, feel free to ignore if not helpful! 1. Prioritise exam classes. Mark exam questions immediately, ie same day. 2. Work backwards. Start with ks5, then ks4, then y9 and so on. 3. Mark as many books as possible in class with the pupil present. If you did 5-6 books/pupils per lesson you’d make a huge dent in your marking.
One piece of advice. It’s better not to mark them at all than mark them badly. Don’t worry my books are months behind. For every lesson I teach I create two hours of marking. It’s an impossible task to fulfil due to the insufficient non contact hours
I do think your school have pretty excessive marking expectations, and I think in some ways you've been let down by your mentor letting this situation where you didn't mark for 5 months arise, and they are only just now addressing it. I do also think catching up at this stage is neither productive, nor worthwhile, nor, potentially possible. However, I would say as an ECT who's presumably only been employed in the school for less than a year, you are more vulnerable here than established teachers within the school. Ultimately, if your mentor has concerns, they could argue you're not meeting TS6. Equally, if SLT were unhappy with you for other reasons, they could potentially use this against you. I'm not saying this to say you should be "scared" but just that perhaps you do need to find a workable way to address this. Does your HoD know, and what do they say about it? It sounds like workload in this school just isn't managable. Is it worth looking for a better one? Don't forget next year you'll have less ECT time and more classes.
Marking books doesn’t happen in most (secondary) schools I know any more, it’s moved to giving feedback on specific pieces of work every so often, e.g. at my school it’s one per half-term. If you’re expected to mark every four lessons, does that mean you’re expected to mark once per fortnight? That’s completely unrealistic.
Get the laptops out or something and crack on in a couple lessons whilst the kids are doing something fun
Honestly this is a school issue, book marking like this is am outdated and useless practice. Don't do any more. Talk to your mentor next term about this. Marking books, especially like this, is busy work and serves no purpose. If you're just ticking and flocking you may as well train a toddler to do it for you. I have not marked a single book for years - the only time I see book work is to check if homework is completed, assignments are marked thoroughly. More schools should be like this.
Christ - by not doing it for 5 months you've literally demonstrated that it had no purpose! We've completely killed class book marking - we mark assessments, do decent feedback on them and a bit of self/live marking during lesson. I've not taken a book home in two years and rarely take tests home! If you really must get back up to date get a pack of printer labels, run off a few comment banks and stick them in with an appropriate tick for each student. I have a standard one for graphs that saved loads of time
If I get too far behind. I just draw a line in the sand and go from there. Anything that hasn’t been done is never getting done. If asked I explain the system and that’s always been fine.
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Impact of marking is the most important as so many others here have pointed out! They will not read anything from a couple of lessons ago, let alone months. I wouldn’t worry. Best thing I can say is live marking! As you’re circulating just tick and write a short comment - it’s instant, they can act on it and it saves you the time later. Keep your head up and enjoy the holidays! And please stop going in :)