Marking- smarter and easier for the teacher.

marking- let's speed it up. Let's get pupils working harder than teachers and constantly responding to feedback. Build those learning conversations.

Before I get started: my marking is not perfect, but I was asked to lead a whole school training workshop on marking with my amazing head of faculty. Follow him on twitter @mrjkwilson

From day one of my training year it was drummed into me about how important marking is. By my university, my mentor, head of department, the senior leadership team. Now, as a fully qualified member of staff we are subject to book trawls or marking scrutiny so that our marking is tracked and interventions can be put in place if needed. As important as these are, marking is for the student, followed by the teacher. Everybody else comes after.

At the state of term I worked out i had to mark 20 books a day to stay on top of my schools 2 week marking turnaround. I searched twitter for ideas about how to mark effectively and this is what I put together:

- a marking box full of stickers, stamps, red pens , green pens, a highlighter and post it notes. This organisation means i can quickly grab it and a few books and I'm ready to mark. This stops me making excuses and avoiding what I need to do.

- I bought a verbal feedback stamp from amazon. Any time I read a students book in class I stamp their work and give them a specific target, the pupils then copy down the target and make that improvement next to it. I do this whilst pupils are on task and it allows me to mark around 6/7 books a lesson. In a 5 period day that's around 30 books. 10 more than my daily target.

- my books are littered with peer and self assessment. This means I can 'facilitate' and 'overview' marking. Therefore, I don't need to mark every piece of work.

Lastly, I don't see the need to mark every piece of work. I have no problem stamping it saying 'good' at the end of a page of notes. Use your time wisely to give clear feedback on what they have done well and what they need to do improve. Give pupil one target at a time. I wouldn't observe a teacher and give them 20 things to improve on. Don't do the same for our learners.

Any questions or more info, follow me on twitter @crawleyjc