St John’s C.E. Primary School
Marking and Feedback Policy
Rationale
Assessment is where the link between teaching and learning is made. Assessment is a vital
part of teaching, enabling the teacher to evaluate the impact of teaching, the children’s level
of understanding and any misconceptions they may have. Assessment should inform both
the teacher and the pupil of next steps in learning. Assessment enables teachers to identify
gaps in knowledge and misconceptions that need to be addressed. We believe that marking
and feedback should provide every child with constructive feedback, so that children clearly
understand where they are achieving success and understand what they have to be doing
next in order to improve and develop their learning further. The purpose is to enable
children to become reflective learners, who take responsibility for their own learning and
improvement, and help them to close the gap between current and desired performance.
Aims
The Marking and Feedback policy of St John’s C.E. Primary School is based on a set of aims
which reflect our educational philosophy and support the overall vision and aims of the
school. The Marking and Feedback policy will help pupils to:
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recognise and celebrate a wide range of achievements.
identify their strengths and areas for reinforcement and development.
take responsibility for, and make informed judgements about, their learning.
understand how to improve their work in order to achieve the learning goal.
compile a record of their personal achievements.
The Marking and Feedback policy will help teachers to:
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be aware of their pupils’ achievements in order to guide their future learning.
evaluate the effectiveness of teaching strategies and materials in their curriculum
planning.
The Marking and Feedback policy will help the school to:
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make informed judgements relating to the way the school's curriculum including the
National Curriculum is planned and resourced.
communicate pupils’ achievements effectively to parents, governors and other
stakeholders.
Marking and Feedback
Marking should:
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Be manageable for teachers and meaningful to children, using simple direct
language.
Relate to the learning objectives and success criteria.
Be carried out by all members of staff working with the children in the classroom.
Allow children to reflect on their learning needs.
Recognise and praise achievement and effort.
Be read and responded to by the children, who modify their work in response.
Be appropriate and timely for the child.
Inform planning and goal/target setting.
Be consistent across the school.
Show children how to improve.
Encourage children to self-evaluate, and self-mark, their work against the
differentiated success criteria.
Feedback and marking strategies used at St John’s
Quality marking
Teachers use their professional judgement in feeding back to children and marking their
work. Feedback should be tailored to the age of the pupil. It has to be specific, accurate and
clear, providing information about why the work is good and clear details on how to
improve, so the learner knows what to do next. It has to be succinct and given sparingly so
that the learner can pay attention to clear next steps. Feedback should be goal directed so
pupils gain a sense of how they are progressing towards a desired outcome. It should
provide details of what a pupil is doing better as well as what they still need to improve, in
order to help motivate the learner. It should encourage and celebrate effort, thereby
supporting the development of a growth mindset.
Feedback has to be timely so that pupils can respond and it can influence the tasks they are
completing.
Teachers use their professional judgement in managing marking, feedback and the
deployment of teaching assistants in supporting feedback.
Each child will receive quality written feedback from the teacher at least once a
week in Maths and Literacy.
Quality marking should focus on the learning and effort involved in the task. The emphasis
of the marking should be on both the success against the learning objective/success criteria
and improvement points relating to the learning objective and long term goal. A focussed
comment is written to help the child to ‘close the gap’ between what they have achieved
and what they could have achieved. These can take one of the following forms:
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A reminder prompt (e.g. Say more about how you feel about this person)
A scaffolded prompt: a question, a directive or an unfinished sentence (e.g. Describe
how this person is a ‘good friend’? Describe something that happened which showed
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you they were a good friend; He showed me he was a good friend when ……….
(finish this sentence).)
An example prompt (Choose one of these or your own: He is a good friend because
he never says unkind things about me. My friend is a friend because he is always
nice to me.)
Effort comments (e.g. I want you to remember for a moment how challenging this
was when you began. Look how far you have come…. Here are some strategies to
help you figure this out…. You were working on this for quite a while and you didn’t
give up! You might be struggling, but you are making progress. I can see your
growth (in these places)…)
Time must be given regularly for children to respond to feedback – RAP TIME. (Respond and
Progress).
Secretarial features:
The learning objective and success criteria should be the focus of marking and feedback.
This is particularly important when a child is carrying out a task for the first time. Once the
creative effort in constructing a piece of written work has been done, children should be
encouraged to check for things they know are wrong with their work in relation to spelling,
punctuation, grammar, etc. Children should not be told to correct all spellings. Key spellings
relevant to the topic or task may be highlighted and practised at the discretion of the
teacher.
Feedback should focus mainly on success criteria set for the work, but the teacher may
choose to comment on ongoing progress and targets as well.
Self-marking
Where appropriate, children should be encouraged to self-evaluate their work in relation to
the success criteria. Older children can look for their own successes and improvement
points. The plenary of a lesson provides an ideal opportunity for children to focus on the
learning that has taken place. Children are also encouraged to reflect on their own effort
and the level of challenge to which they have responded.
Peer feedback
It is very meaningful for children to evaluate work in pairs, particularly writing. However, it
is important to consider the following:
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Children need training in peer feedback and ground rules need to be devised
Children should point out what they like first, and only then make a suggested
improvement relating to the learning objective/success criteria.
Pairings should be carefully monitored by the teacher
Children should aim to improve work via a dialogue rather than taking it in turns to
be the ‘marker’.
Children will use 2 smiley faces & arrow for next steps in peer marking as per maths
marking code.
Success criteria
Children are encouraged to choose their own level of challenge with guidance from the
teacher to ensure the challenge is appropriate to the child.
Children are asked to self-evaluate their work in relation to the success criteria applicable to
the level of challenge selected.
Feedback should reference the degree to which a pupil has challenged themselves as well as
the level of success. We seek to develop the children’s capacity and confidence to respond
to challenging tasks as part of fostering a growth mindset.
Marking Codes
These will vary depending on the age and ability of the children. Codes are introduced in
Reception and developed as children progress through the school. There are no hard and
fast rules stating what is used. The teacher of each class will share these with their class at
the beginning of the year.
Codes
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in general used are:
VF for verbal feedback
I for independent work
T for teacher supported
OA for other adult support
PF for Peer Feedback
In addition to these codes and as children progress as more independent and fluent writers
through KS2 a greater range of codes are introduced. These may include:
 use of Sp under a word to indicate an incorrect spelling
 // new paragraph
 ^ omitted word/s
 Error in answer (maths) X
 Correct answer (maths) √
Maths marking Coding System
At the end of a lesson allow children the opportunity to self-evaluate their work to the
objective.
LO Achieved
More practise needed
LO achieved and more
Then your marking codes could compliment this.
Next steps (requires taught input)
top tip for success in learning
- Extension question
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Please give the child an opportunity to write what the feedback was.
- 5 minute intervention needed, perhaps with TA, if the child or teacher has
indicated
more practise needed
MARKING
MARKING AND FEEDBACK IN Reception and Year 1
In Reception feedback is often through verbal comments to particular children, with
questions to encourage dialogue and pupil understanding. Written comments are often in
the form of a record for other adults to generate actions, tasks and provision to support the
child to take the appropriate next step.
As children progress through Year 1, written feedback can be read with the children to
encourage understanding when ‘quality marking’ has been undertaken. Marking is against
the success criteria using ‘2 stars and a wish’ to celebrate success and target next steps.
In addition to the marking codes in Reception and Year 1, marking and feedback strategies
may include:
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Verbal Praise
Stickers and stamps
Written annotations, short and narrative observations (written)
Annotation of work and photographs by staff
Children beginning to annotate their own work and pictures
Oral dialogue with children about their play, work or special books
MARKING AND FEEDBACK IN Years 2-6
WALT GRIDS
Year 2 to have success criteria written in by teacher with expectation that by middle of the
year (February) children will start to choose one of their appropriate writing/Maths targets
and complete one success criteria box with the help of the class teacher.
Year 3 to have success criteria written in by teacher with expectation that children will
choose one of their appropriate writing/Maths target on a weekly basis and complete one
success criteria box with the help of the class teacher.
Year 4, 5, 6 to have success criteria written in by teacher with expectation that children will
complete their own success criteria box choosing one of their appropriate writing/ Maths
targets or an area of development with the help of the class teacher.
Maths and Literacy
Children self-assess their learning by using the existing maths marking code (Smiley
Faces) against each success criteria – see grid for example
Teacher highlights success criteria box in either PINK HIGHLIGHTER (child has achieved that
success criteria – ‘TICKLED PINK’) or GREEN HIGHLIGHTER (child is working towards or
hasn’t showed evidence of achieving the success criteria – GREEN For GROWTH) -see grid
for example
Highlighting on the WALT Grid can be done during or at the end of each lesson.
RAP Time
To support Assessment for Learning (and Assessment for Teaching) RAP time (Respond and
Progress Time) to be incorporated so the children can reflect on the previous lesson.
Therefore each child will respond to the PINK/GREEN boxes that were highlighted.
Practically this will mean we will have up on the board the RAP time expectations for the
children to reflect upon.
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Children will complete the GREEN activity if they have any green highlighter on their
success criteria grid.
If all boxes are pink then children will complete the Pink Extension activity.
Pupils that have teacher comments can respond directly to them.
If you feel that the child needs to see you during RAP time put a 5 in the book (as per
existing maths marking code) so the child can spend some time with you holding a surgery
to go over some of the learning.
It may be for a piece of work you highlight a word or example in PINK to show the pupil
that they have achieved the learning objective or showed good learning. Conversely you
could highlight an example or word in GREEN for the pupil to directly respond to during RAP
time and make a correction. A comment may or may not be appropriate.
FEEDBACK
It is expected that each child should have written feedback in their books once a week. It
maybe that a child will need more than that if they haven’t quite grasped the learning
objective.
When giving written feedback PINK pen should be used for positive comments (TICKLED
PINK). GREEN PEN should be used to extend or consolidate their learning (GREEN FOR
GROWTH).
When children are responding to work they should use a different colour.
WALT: Find non-unit
fractions of amounts
I have
checked
Teacher
checked
WALT: Find non-unit
fractions of amounts
I can find ½, or ¼ of an amount.
I can find ½, or ¼ of an amount.
I can find 1/3 of an amount.
I can find 1/3 of an amount.
I can use multiplication or repeated
addition to then find ¾, 5/8 of amounts.
I can use multiplication or repeated
addition to then find ¾, 5/8 of amounts.
Independent
Pairs
Group
WALT: Find non-unit
fractions of amounts
Supported
I have
checked
Teacher
checked
Independent
Pairs
Group
WALT: Find non-unit
fractions of amounts
I have
checked
Teacher
checked
Supported
I have
checked
Teacher
checked
I can find ½, or ¼ of an amount.
I can find ½, or ¼ of an amount.
I can find 1/3 of an amount.
I can find 1/3 of an amount.
I can use multiplication or repeated
addition to then find ¾, 5/8 of amounts.
I can use multiplication or repeated
addition to then find ¾, 5/8 of amounts.
PUPIL SUCCESS CRITERIA
Independent
Independent
Pairs
Group
WALT: Find non-unit
fractions of amounts
Pairs
Group
Supported
Supported
I have
checked
Teacher
checked
WALT: Find non-unit
fractions of amounts
I have
checked
Teacher
checked
I can find ½, or ¼ of an amount.
I can find 1/3 of an amount.
I can use multiplication or repeated
addition to then find ¾, 5/8 of amounts.
Independent
Pairs
Group
Supported
Independent
Pairs
Group
Supported