Pamphill First School
Marking Policy
(November 2013)
Introduction
At Pamphill School we believe marking should provide constructive feedback to every child, focusing on
success and improvement against learning objectives. Marking should help children to become reflective
learners and give them strategies to be able to improve their work and take the next steps in their
learning. We aim to provide a system of marking that is consistent and continuous, across each stage
within our school, that informs and influences our planning and which enhances children’s learning.
Research shows that marking is the most important factor in pupil learning, so this policy is crucial for
the school.
Aims:
Effective marking should:
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Give feedback to children, inform them of their achievements and the next steps in their learning
Relate to learning objectives and success criteria for each lesson
Give children specific praise for the success of their work, showing it is valued
Give children clear strategies on how they can improve their work
Help teachers evaluate teaching and inform future planning and next steps in learning
Show consistent codes and procedures throughout the school
Provide a tool for teacher assessment
Help parents to understand the strengths and areas to develop in their children’s work
Positively affect the child’s progress
Basic marking:
The learning objective and date will be at the top of all pieces of work.
Basic marking would include one or some of the following:
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Verbal comments and oral feedback during the lesson
Verbal comments and oral feedback after lessons to indicate the learning that was achieved
in previous lessons.
Highlighting the L.O. in pink if child achieved.
Underline if partly achieved in green.
Green dot if LO has not been achieved.
No comments need be written at the bottom, but teachers will take the opportunity to pick
up on spellings, grammar, presentation, layout, number formation and give positive
comments etc. When TAs work with a group, their marking should be related to the LO and
specify any areas of difficulty and initialled. This will be used by teachers to inform future
planning.
RRS Article 28:
You have the right to a good quality education. You should be encouraged to go to school to the highest level you can.
Verbal Feedback
It is important for all children to have verbal feedback from the adult working with them. This may be to
correct a child’s understanding or to extend the child’s learning. The teacher should indicate where
verbal feedback has been given if related to written work (v)
Effective feedback: (Quality marking)
This must relate to the Learning Objective only.
This should be done ideally once a week or several times when appropriate in a unit of work. Teachers
should use the language “tickled pink” and “growing green”. It is not necessary for teachers to mark
every piece of work in detail, but marking should acknowledge that it has been viewed with a tick. No
work is left unmarked. Detailed marking feedback appears on key pieces of work where appropriate.
No more than three spellings are corrected per piece of work. Each incorrect spelling mistake will be
written correctly 3 times.
Tickled pink
Examples to show where children have achieved the success criteria in a piece of work will
be highlighted pink by the teacher. The LO will also be highlighted in pink to show that it has been
achieved.
Growing Green
This is an area for the child to work on and improve.
Teachers will give children prompts for improving work relating to the LO.
Within lessons, teachers should build in time for mini plenaries with opportunities for children to reflect
on success criteria and make improvements to work during the lesson.
After quality marking, time should be given, either in the next lesson or in a specific growing green time,
for children to read the marking comments and respond to the suggestions.
Where children have responded to feedback marking in books, teachers should initial their feedback to
acknowledge the child’s response.
Peer / Paired Marking
On occasions children will be asked to mark their peers work and to comment either verbally or with a
written symbol (see below) and signed by the child. It could include a positive comment or a
development comment, depending on which symbol they have used.
Effective self assessment
The children will use the face symbols (see above) at the bottom of the page to show their own
independent evaluation of their work. They will also be used by the children to show areas of work that
they think are good and areas they need to work on.
This could be done as mini plenaries within the lesson or at the end.
Marking in Foundation and Y1
Feedback can be done by the teacher or TA with an individual child or with a group of children looking at
a piece of work, identifying together successes and areas for improvement. Much of this will be done
orally; the children will be taught to explain why a piece of work is good.
Foundation and Y1 will also be taught to use the assessment faces to self-evaluate their work.
RRS Article 28:
You have the right to a good quality education. You should be encouraged to go to school to the highest level you can.
Pamphill First School
Marking Codes
Code
Explanation
I
A
TA
GW
PA
V
Independent work
Aided work
TA marked work
Group work
Peer Assessed
Verbal feedback given
I don’t understand
I need more practice
I am confident with this
SP
?
CL
Tickled Pink
Growing Green
LO
SC
Spelling Mistake
Doesn’t make sense
Capital letter missing
Punctuation missing
LO achieved
Something to improve on
Learning Objective
Success Criteria
Policy adopted by Governors: __________________________________
This policy will be reviewed: ___________________________________
RRS Article 28:
You have the right to a good quality education. You should be encouraged to go to school to the highest level you can.