Marking and Feedback

The aim of feedback is to promote student progress. Evidence suggests more marking does not lead to more progress and the principle aim at Spalding Grammar School is to promote quality over quantity of marking and feedback.

Marking refers to making a judgement as to students’ current level of attainment against a set of criteria. This may be a test score or grade (e.g. 1-9). Most commonly, this will be given following a CAT or internal assessment and may be used with Assessed Homework.

Feedback refers to the recognition of success and progression in students’ work and includes advice to further secure improvement. Effective feedback must be “meaningful, manageable and motivating” (The Education Endowment Foundation, 2016) and allow for students to make progress.

We recognise the value of a variety of feedback methods. However, for the purpose of this policy, “feedback” refers to formal feedback given to extended/key tasks to which students respond.

Students’ responsibilities

To ensure students receive the best and most relevant feedback to their work, they must ensure that:

• all work must have an underlined date, title and heading, including whether it is Class Work, Prep, or Assessed Homework
• all sheets must be stuck into exercise books neatly and in the appropriate place.
• all work must be checked by the student for accuracy of SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar) before submission
• they have completed the task set to the expected standard and fulfilled the objectives/criteria 
• they respond to or act on feedback in a purple pen and should take responsibility for acting on feedback in future pieces of work to ensure sustained progress.

Failure to adhere to these expectations will require students to complete or improve the task before the teacher marks it or offers feedback.

Staff responsibilities

• It is not required that every piece of work will be marked. No ‘tick and flick’ expected. Instead, high-quality marking and feedback will take place on more detailed pieces of work at least every ten lessons
• It is the responsibility of each member of staff to reinforce high expectations of presentation (as outlined in section 1)
• Acknowledgement marking should only be done in lesson as a means to celebrate effort and motivate students to complete all tasks well- it should not be carried out outside of lessons
• Peer and self-assessment are to be encouraged in addition to regular feedback from staff. It is recognised that students benefit from marking their own work and that of others increasing their understanding of assessment criteria
• Feedback takes a variety of forms and can be either verbal or written. Both are beneficial to students and it is not required that teachers record where verbal feedback has been given
• Staff will always provide clear expectations/objective/success criteria to students for any assessed piece of work, whether for teacher, self or peer assessment
• Departments will apply the most appropriate feedback methods that best support the task, student or class.

Codes

• All teaching staff have the responsibility to support students in the importance of their written communication, and will use the codes below to identify common errors in students’ work when giving feedback.

• some departments may use additional subject-specific codes
• staff are responsible for highlighting errors.  Students are responsible for making the corrections.

RAFT (Reflecting and Acting on Feedback Time)

• There should be some allocation of RAFT (Reflecting and Acting on Feedback Time) whenever students are given feedback. Teachers are expected to plan for this when setting any key piece of work
• It is anticipated that the length of time allocated to RAFT should be proportionate to the demand of the task. For example, RAFT to review a CAT is likely to take longer than RAFT to review a short homework task
• Students have a responsibility to use this time to demonstrate that they have understood and can act on feedback
• Students will show their corrections or improved work by writing these in a purple pen.

More details can be found in the full marking and feedback policy on the school website