Preston Hedge S Primary School

Policy No. CUR-013 Preston Hedge’s Primary School Page 1 of 6 Version No. 6 MARKING & FEEDBACK POLICY - Curriculum Committee

MARKING & FEEDBACK POLICY

This section should be signed and dated by the Committee Chair, Headteacher and the Chair of the Full Governing Body, following ratification of the Policy. A review date should be set. The signed copy should be filed by the Clerk.

Name Signature Date Gary Chair of Sub-Committee’s Approval BrownNeal Prescott Headteacher’s Approval Paul Watson Chair of Governors’ Approval Neal Prescott Recommended Review Date: May 20186 (every 2 years)

Ownership Preston Hedge’s Primary School is responsible for the production and maintenance of this document. It is issued by the Clerk, [email protected] Claire White, claire885white@btinternet. to whom any change requests or queries should be directed.

Version Control This document is issued and maintained in accordance with Preston Hedge’s Primary School procedures. Any change to the document will increase its version number. It is the responsibility of the reader to check with the Clerk that this is a currently valid copy.

Version Date Description of Change Changed By 1 January 2010 Unknown - 2 June 2012 C Stewart 3 Sept 2012 Minor additions P Watson 4 January 2014 Minor addition – strategy codes Pg 3 P Watson 5 May 2014 Single paragraph addition to bullet 2 on pg 3 P Watson 6 November 2016 Amendments in Writing & Mathematics T Coles

References/Related Documents Ref. No. Title Doc. No.

Glossary Term Description

Filed as: D:\Docs\2018-04-14\0812cee52f2cdf3b8afc8a64bb7be918.doc Policy No. CUR-013 Preston Hedge’s Primary School Page 2 of 6 Version No. 6 MARKING & FEEDBACK POLICY - Curriculum Committee Policy No. CUR-013 Preston Hedge’s Primary School Page 3 of 6 Version No. 6 MARKING & FEEDBACK POLICY - Curriculum Committee

MARKING & FEEDBACK POLICY

At Preston Hedge’s we understand the importance of effective feedback and marking. The aim of our marking policy is to provide a consistent approach to marking throughout the school. Marking informs future key points in teaching and learning, whilst providing feedback to children and parents. Effective feedback enables standards to be raised.

“Marking has the potential to be the most powerful, manageable and useful diagnostic record of achievement…marking has two functions: to provide an assessment record and to provide feedback to the child.” (S. Clarke)

However,

“The quality of dialogue in feedback is important and most research indicates that oral feedback is more effective than written feedback.” (QCA)

In order to impact on learning, feedback is therefore both oral and written at Preston Hedge’s. At our school, feedback must be swift to children and effective, but also manageable to ensure that all pupils receive regular and relevant feedback

Effective Feedback

In order for feedback to be effective across our school it must include these generic points throughout the curriculum:

 Clear learning objectives are identified in teachers planning for each lesson.  Learning objectives are shared with the children either orally or in a written form in language that they can understand.  Learning objectives are recorded at the beginning of each piece of written work as succinctly as possible.  Marking focuses on the success criteria for the learning objective.  It informs the child where success has occurred, and where and how improvement could take place.  Provides strategies for improvement.  Comments are always in a form that is accessible to the learner.  Time is given for the child to read and respond to the written feedback. This could happen as part of the children’s morning work or at the beginning of a lesson  Children are provided with opportunities to assess their own and one another’s work as an essential part of the feedback process.  The outcome of feedback, along with other assessment information, is used to adjust future teaching plans. Policy No. CUR-013 Preston Hedge’s Primary School Page 4 of 6 Version No. 6 MARKING & FEEDBACK POLICY - Curriculum Committee

Features of Marking at Preston Hedge’s Primary School

At Preston Hedge’s we:

 Mark work using black pen.  Use highlighters when appropriate to mark successes. A green highlighter is used to mark where the learning objective/ success criteria have been met. A yellow highlighter is used to mark where some improvement could be made. The green should outweigh the yellow colour. An orange highlighter is used to prompt feedback from the children (Phase 2) or is used by the children to identify their responses to the teacher’s marking (Phase 3).  All work should be marked with the following: 1. Tick = Learning objective achieved 2. Tick and give an appropriate explanation = Learning objective partly achieved  Correct key errors but avoid over marking and negative responses.  When oral feedback has been given then work need not be commented on, however oral feedback must be written and the initials of the adult if there is more than one in the room. Oral feedback should not be used for the Big Write and in this context should only be used in addition to written feedback.  Oral feedback should be used no more regularly than any other method of feedback.  Relate comments to the learning objective and/or success criteria. However, if an issue needs to be raised with the child to ensure further progress, such as presentation or handwriting, then this comment should be placed in brackets ( ) to show that it does not relate to the learning.  Ensure comments are positive and provide praise for success to enhance children’s self esteem.  Encourage children to mark their own or each other’s work where appropriate. When peer or self marking has taken place the teacher will still look at the work and tick the learning objective, but a written comment is not required. Peer marking should not be used more regularly than any other method.  Where an answer is wrong, a cross must not be used. We draw attention to mistakes by putting a small c or a dot.  At Preston Hedge’s, we use a variety of strategies to ensure all pupils are able to develop their writing effectively. Therefore, in this book, the following codes will be used: SWI – Shared Writing Input, GW – Guided Writing and Ind – Independent

Whilst we strive to ensure that our marking is consistent across the school, teachers must use their own professional judgement in applying this approach. For example, it would be inappropriate for a less able child to have their entire piece corrected, or for a younger child to be expected to know all their high frequency words.

ENGLISH

Reading Due to the interactive nature of reading teaching, there will be a significant amount of oral feedback. On annotated work a tick, or a tick with an explanation, must be used against the learning objective. To encourage improvement in reading, teachers may prompt a deeper comment using phrases such as “could you extend this more ...?” “what does this word mean?”, “How would you feel if this was you?” Where written feedback is given, it should relate to the learning and focus on the assessment focuses identified for the lesson.

For more able children in Phase 3, using first and final responses to comment on the learning is extremely powerful, as it demonstrates the progress children have made in the lesson Policy No. CUR-013 Preston Hedge’s Primary School Page 5 of 6 Version No. 6 MARKING & FEEDBACK POLICY - Curriculum Committee

Writing In writing a highlighter must be used, unless oral feedback is given (see generic criteria). Marking within the body of the pupil’s writing text should focus on picking up any grammatical. Where there are not grammatical errors, marking should give pupils the opportunity to make their writing more sophisticated, for example, in asking the children to find a more exciting or specific adjective. the learning for the lesson, however the non negotiable (Chris Brown) can be commented on where expectations have not been met. In addition, these non negotiable can also be used to set pupils should be set individual next steps targetsfor individual and to inform future teaching and learning on planning. These should be based on the next writing step children need to include to make progress, and may comes from the writing assessment grid or the year group’s mnemonic. These should also be used by the teacher to inform future teaching and learning on planning. Where next steps have been given it is imperative that children are given time to respond to the comments. Following this, at an age appropriate level, a child would ideally initial the comments to show they have read and understood the points.

Phase 1 and 2 To ensure the children can access feedback that is written, pictorial cues should be used to provide feedback. The symbols must be stuck at the front of each child’s book, so that adults can support children in making next steps.

Spelling Spelling is only identified when it is below expectations for the ability of that child. For example, an average Year 4 should be able to use “their” and “there” in the appropriate context. Spelling is identified with the abbreviation “sp” above the word and then corrected in the margin. It is considered good practice to provide next steps for spellings by asking the child to write the correct spelling a number of times underneath the work, i.e. Year 2 may be asked to write ‘when’ into a sentence.

HANDWRITING

Phase 1 and 2 May want to comment on particular aspects of handwriting, however this should be infrequent and in brackets ( ).

Phase 2 & 3 Handwriting is important and an expectation, however marking must focus on learning. Nevertheless if the presentation is poor, the teacher should comment in brackets ( ) and monitor the situation.

Big Write These should be marked in line with the guidance above. However feedback must include the following:

Year 1 / 2 – One positive and a next step

During Phase 2 it should move to Year 2 joining Year 3, by providing two positives and one next step (although this may be more for a more able child).

In Phase 3 it should be age and ability appropriate, however should ensure that the positive outweighs the negative.

CURRICULUM AND SCIENCE

Marking in this area needs to consider three things when providing feedback:

1. Feedback must comment on the learning objective for the session, which must be related to the key skill objectives. The objective will either be marked with a tick, or a tick with an explanation. Policy No. CUR-013 Preston Hedge’s Primary School Page 6 of 6 Version No. 6 MARKING & FEEDBACK POLICY - Curriculum Committee

Challenge objectives must also be identified in the children’s work where applicable and feedback should be given using the abbreviations in the generic section.

MATHEMATICS

The same abbreviations also apply to Maths marking

At our school we believe in the power of accurate, timely feedback and are dedicated in using this to raise standards across the curriculum. We use this daily to adapt the learning journey and as an integral part of lessons. We recognise that feedback is also vital to ensure that children do not have misconceptions in their learning that go unnoticed.

Due to the interactive nature of our Maths lessons there are not often huge reams of calculations in our children’s books. However, the objective should always be ticked, or ticked with an explanation. Where calculation errors occur , these should be noted with a yellow highlighter, and guidance should be offered in the child’s book which aids their learning. It is an expectation that a dialogue ensues, and pupils should return to the calculation to ‘have another go’. Once they are complete, pupils should note their re-working with an orange highlighter. Green highlighter should be used to comment on the pupil’s success at the end of the work. A next step, highlighted in yellow and detailing what the next stage of learning is for the pupil should be included, particularly if there are no errors, and should be acknowledged by the pupil with initials.

We would strongly urge teachers to develop the capacity of our children to check their calculations.

STAFF EXPECTATIONS

Where books are not consistently marked it would be viewed as a disciplinary matter.

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