Marking should identify where the student has made progress and inform their next steps. Feedback is only really effective if the information fed back to the learner is used by the learner to improve performance.  It is therefore important to provide time for pupils to respond to feedback in class (see Stage 5). Feedback can be accurate but not helpful, for example, if it describes what needs to happen but does not show how the student can improve. For feedback to be helpful it is important that the student knows how to use the feedback to improve - saying what is wrong is not enough – feedback should provide ‘a recipe for future action’.

Key Principles

• Feedback should be linked to the success criteria that have been shared with the students. 

• Reflect on the impact of your teaching as you mark.  If the whole class is receiving the same target, it is best to stop marking and plan a lesson that helps them with what they are struggling with.

• Do not forget the emotional element – feedback should not be purely analytical – it should motivate the student and help to build a positive pupil-teacher relationship. A phone call home or verbal face-to-face acknowledgement can make a massive difference.

• Keep written comments to a minimum. Feedback needs to be broken down into small, manageable and specific steps – less is often more – give less feedback but make it more focussed. For example, ‘over the next two weeks I want you to work on these two things’.

• Targets should ‘feed-forward’ into future work – expect students to write these two targets at the top of their next piece of work. Feedback should provide a focus for subsequent pieces of work. 

• In terms of teacher praise, quality is more important that quantity. Praise is more effective if it is infrequent, credible, specific and linked to factors within an individual’s control - the feedback we provide should support the view that ability is incremental rather that fixed. 

• The timing of the feedback is also crucial. If it is provided too early (before students have had a chance to struggle and try to solve a problem) then students become too dependent on the teacher – they think less and so learn less. 

• Encourage the pupil to provide feedback to the teacher when they hand in their work. They should feel able to ask questions, let me their teacher know what they are struggling with and to ask for further support. This provides useful feedback to the teacher, can inform planning and provide a focus for marking.

 

Using marking codes

Marking codes can help ensure that the feedback is precise and linked to advice on how to improve (next steps). The codes can be linked to common areas where students lose marks in the exam. For example: QF (Question Focus), ND (explanation Not Developed), NC (lacks Clarity), NS (argument Not Supported). They also save teacher time - how often do we write the same comment on a number of essays? The marking codes below not only help to identify strengths and weaknesses within a piece of written work, they also provide advice on how to improve (ie – next steps).

Marking codes also aid diagnostic assessment. Codes can be recorded in our mark book and over time we can identify common problems (these can be addressed by whole class teaching) or and where an individual student is constantly losing marks (this can be addressed through one to one support). Alternatively, the class can be grouped accordingly – students who are strong in a particular area can help others or groups of pupils who need support in a particular area can be grouped together to receive a mini-tutorial from the teacher.

 

GCSE Marking Codes

 

The uses and value of question prompts

Read the student’s work – when you see something on which you would like the student to reflect place a numbered circle at that point in the text. Underneath the student’s work write a question related to that numbered circle – leaving lines for the student to respond.  Aim to write 2 or 3 questions. These might not necessarily address an area for improvement. Instead, for example, you might want to encourage the pupil to reflect on why a particular section of their work is impressive or shows progression from previous attempts.

Part of the next lesson or a subsequent homework should be allocated to pupils responding to the questions. This allows teachers to personalise the feedback and the next piece of homework does not simply become making corrections (this can leave high achievers with little to do).  ‘Why?’ questions work particularly well – Why do I like this paragraph? Why is this paragraph not as good? Why would you drop marks here?

Question prompts can get students to think about the learning process and develop a dialogue in students’ books. John Hattie highlights the following categories of question prompts that can be used for feedback:

• Organisational prompts – How can you structure this in an effective way?

• Elaboration prompts – What examples can you provide to support this? What examples conflict with this? Can you create links between …?

• Monitoring progress prompts – What main points have you understood well? What main points have you yet to understand?

• Task level prompts – Does this meet the success criteria? What other information is needed? What have you done well?

• Reflection prompts – What strategies did you use? Why did you use them? How successful were they?