Marking strategies in Geography

Engaging pupils in the marking process reduces the time spent by the teacher.

As a head of department I am always looking for ways to make the lives of my team easier in and out of school. We all know that marking takes up far too much time and we often wonder whether it has the impact that we would like it to have. Everyone now is aware that we need to be getting pupils to engage with the marking and if done correctly works wonders at helping the pupils to progress further. Differentiated questioning during the marking process can definitely help these high achievers to be stretched and consolidate learning for those that are weaker.

The time taken to mark is an issue and the feeling that we have to be setting purposeful targets is putting pressure on staff to spend longer marking. In my department we have come up with some useful strategies to reduce time and pressure when marking.

We use stamps for presentation and underlining to avoid having to write these statements out numerous times. We also have a notes stamp that is stamped in the margin on pages where pupils have made notes and created information from discussion. This ensures that people checking our marking are aware of why we haven't set targets on these specific pieces of work. We also use "verbal feedback" stamps in lesson when pupils ask a question and they note down what has been said and respond. These all save time.

Pupils respond to targets in green so it is very evident that they have engaged with the marking. One final thing that we have started to do is "peer assessment and improvement". We have always done peer assessment but we have now gone one step further by ensuring that when the pupils set a target that it is in the form of a question or command that the pupil whose work it is can then respond. We get them to respond immediately. Getting the pupils to set the targets and ensuring that the pupils do the target in the lesson definitely reduces time for the teacher when marking. I check the work and correct where necessary but in most cases the target and improvement is excellent. Pupils need training on this as obviously most pupils want to write comments such as "explain more". After a few lessons doing this they are well trained and their targets are just as effective in most case as what teachers would set. Picture attached of an example of peer assessment and improvement. It's not really clear, but you can see where another pupil has peer assessed and underneath the signature is the response from the pupil. If anyone would like further evidence please follow me on Twitter - @mrspgeographer