Marking Policy Formative, Effective and Reflective

August 2022

GEMS NEW MILLENNIUM SCHOOL

Al Khail
 Index

1. Introduction

2. Policy aim and objectives

i. Expectations from students
ii. Marking
- Light marking of work
- Self/peer assessment
- Diagnostic marking
- Student response
- Quality teacher Marking
iii. Marking code
iv. Presentation of students’ written work and portfolios
v. Feedback templates
- Green is Great! Blue to Do!
- 2 stars and a wish
- What Went Well and Even Better If
- Use of clip-art and visuals
vi. Summative-Formative, written and verbal feedback
vii. Student engagement with written feedback
viii. Parent engagement with written feedback

3. Assessing the quality of marking

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 Introduction:
Meta-analysis by Professor John Hattie has identified feedback as the major factor in pupil progress. This mirrors
the findings of Paul Black and Dylan Williams. Feedback is a core component of assessment for learning.
Assessment for learning is a core component of personalised learning.

Teacher plans the lesson using

clear subject specific learning
objectives .

Teacher may decide to redesign

planning for next lesson based on
what has been learned from the Student completes the learning
marking.

Closing the Gap

Students gives feedback that work
Teacher marks students' work in
has been completed and
green pen/ digital tools
understood.

Student is given time to do Teacher signposts where work is particularly

corrections and go over work in good in a green highlighter. (Green is Great!)
purple pen. and in blue (Blue to do!)Student reads
feedback and looks at work to see what
needs improving.

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 Policy Aims
To ensure that all students have their work marked in such a way that it improves their learning and builds self-
esteem.

Policy Objectives
1) To enable feedback to be an effective tool for promoting learning for all NMS students.

2) To develop an interactive process that confirms when students are on the right track and then lets them know
what needs to be done to improve and make progress.

3) To prompt all students to respond to the written feedback given by the teacher thus developing their thinking
skills and promoting independent learning.

Expectations from students

Work Samples

• Exercise books/folders/textbooks should be without tears, folds and free from any irrelevant information.
Name of Student, Class, Subject, present grade level, target grade level etc should be filled in neatly by the
student.
• Progress graph- line graph for FA and Bar graph for SA (fixed in the students’ exercise book at the end of
every unit)
• Index page in the exercise books is filled with the Sr. No. Date and Topic by the student. The index is signed
and by the teacher

Digital notebook
• Each subject has a folder with sub folders for curricular targets, Homework, chapters etc
• Chapter wise folders to be named with topic/sub topics.
• Every page should have learning objective, success criteria and date.
• Students can either inset text box and type their work or insert images of handwritten work.
• Images should be high resolution, readable, neatly cropped and inserted.
• Students can use digital highlighters and text to respond to teacher’s feedback.

Marking:
Effective marking and feedback is integral to good teaching and learning. By empowering students to be actively
involved in understanding how they are making progress, it helps to embed learning swiftly and enables accelerated
learning.
Effective marking and feedback aims to:
✓ Inform the student what they have done well and what they need to do to improve

✓ Support student confidence and self-esteem in learning - contributing to accelerated learning

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 ✓ Support teachers’ assessment knowledge of each student as part of assessment for learning procedures, in order
to plan and refine next steps in learning

✓ Develop consistent processes across the school to teach students to respond to feedback, self-assess and evaluate
their own learning

Light marking of work – weekly:

Acknowledging and recognising achievement/completion of a task through green pen ticks, stamps/stickers of praise or
acknowledgement.

Self/Peer Assessment – weekly:

Students take responsibility in marking their own or a peer’s work in a coloured pencil (primary)/purple pen, with set
criterion provided by the teacher. Teachers must acknowledge the self/peer assessment, by highlighting, to indicate
where progress has been made.
Students are encouraged to assess their own work using the literacy proofreading code – CUPS – Capital Letters,
Underline, Punctuation, Spelling; to ensure grammar, spelling and paragraph structure are improved.

Diagnostic Marking – once every two weeks:

Where thorough feedback is given on attainment against a set of objectives; success criteria is given and response from
pupils is required to strengthen the teaching and learning process in order to deepen and accelerate learning. When
given feedback to students the teacher must consider:
➢ Does feedback inform the pupil what they have done well and what they need to do to improve?

➢ Relate to planned learning objectives, success criteria or assessment criteria?

➢ Can feedback be read clearly and understood?

➢ Does feedback indicate a next step/improvement in learning?

Thus, the NMS written feedback must be in green pen, must begin with a positive, then an area for development and a
short activity which allows the students to address their target.
✓ WWW/EBI – Phase 3 & 4 (Year 7- Year 11)

✓ Two stars and a wish – Phase 1 &2

Student Response:
Student response must address the SMART Target soon after the teacher’s feedback - in a purple coloured pencil
(primary), coloured pen (secondary)
Time must be allocated in lessons to address the SMART target. This is to ensure the students develop their
understanding prior to any new learning; not to make similar mistakes again and accelerate their learning. A student
signature or student comments that have little value to progress must not be included in student responses.

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Quality Teacher Marking
• The teacher marks in green pen. The teacher can use a green highlighter to signpost in the work where a key
aspect of the learning objective has been met (Green is Great!). When reading over the work the student is drawn
to this so as to reinforce where learning has been particularly strong.

• The teacher can use a blue highlighter to signpost in the work where a key aspect of the learning objective has
not been understood (Blue to Do!). When reading over the work the student is drawn to this so as to reinforce
where learning has not been strong and needs correcting / improving.

• An appropriate amount of time should be provided to enable students to improve their work within the lesson.

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Marking Code:
It is essential for students to know that a marking code is applied in all subjects. This ensures uniformity and consistency
across all curriculum areas. Through clear expectations of marking, students and teachers will benefit from picking up
any inconsistency in the work. It is imperative as teachers that we indicate any literacy errors the student makes in a
piece of writing.
Teachers must ensure the following marking code is adhered too; and/or incorporated in the subject/department
marking policy.

Marking for Literacy

We use the following marks:

Mark Means…

Sp + Underline, Try this spelling again.

C Find the missing or misplaced capital letter.
Pu Put in the correct punctuation.
// Mark in where the paragraphs should be.
? Write this short section at the end, to improve the clarity and appropriateness. E.g.
Add in this point that you forgot to include/ give an example.
* Well- written section- apt and clear.
** Striking or imaginative writing. Optional extras: additional marks that may be
used depending on the subject
Ct Add the context
Ev Provide evidence
Vv Vary vocabulary used
Gr Correct grammar
Pr Take appropriate action to improve your presentation (teacher to indicate)
✓ Acknowledged the work
It matters where the mark is:

• Next to a line - means you can find it in the line

• Against a vertical pen line – means you can find it in this section
• At the end - means there is a problem throughout

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Presentation of Students’ Written Work and Portfolios

At NMS we believe students should be encouraged to take pride and care in how they present their written work. No
graffiti should be present on any pupil books.

✓ All student work is written in blue or black pen, except for primary students who will write in pencil unless given
pen license. For diagrams and drawings a ruler and pencil is used, any labels are written in blue or black pen
✓ Student responses are written in exercises books in a purple coloured pen, or with a colouring pencil or gel pen, not
felt-tip
✓ All student classwork should be labelled C/W and all home learning labelled H/L in the margin
✓ A full date for example ‘Wednesday, 1st September 2022’ is written
✓ All student work should have a centralised title that is underlined with a ruler
✓ All student work should have a ‘Learning Objective’ that is clearly displayed in books for every lesson as taken from
the PPT – this could be written, stickers etc.
✓ All work should be ruled off when finished. The next piece of work begins after this and not on a new page, except
for primary students who can start on the next page
✓ Any worksheets are stuck neatly into books and labelled appropriately or attached using treasury tags
✓ All student workbooks are stored in a specified safe place, clearly labelled with labels
✓ Teacher marking (WWW/EBI) is written in green pen
✓ Assessment grades are written in green pen using the appropriate marking codes (see Marking and Assessment
Policy for more detailed information)
✓ Peer and self-assessment is written using a coloured pencil (primary)/coloured pen(secondary), Peer-assessment
should include the name of the other student.

For example: Date

LO Date on top-left of page
Title
Learning Objective written directly underneath

Title to be centralised, underlined and task to start

immediately after title

Instructions do not need to be written

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Physical Books Feedback Templates:

I have met the below learning objectives

To progress I need to

Grade/Score

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 Use of clip-art and visuals

http://www.effectivemarking.co.uk/#/science-
stickers/4524494679

http://www.effectivemarking.co.uk/#/marking-
stickers/4524369399

http://www.effectivemarking.co.uk/#/peer-
assessment/4527669779

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 Marking Digital Notebooks:
Most used digital notebook platforms one note and Classkick provide different tools to provide feedback such as text
boxes, digital pen, Highlighters, digital inking, comments, audio feedback, editable stickers etc.

Editable stickers:
Teacher creates interactive stickers based on the learning objective, images also can be inserted with written
feedback.

Verbal Feedback:
Teachers’ record feedback using audio tool, students respond to Teacher’s feedback in different forms.

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 Self-Assessment/Reflection:
Formative/Summative assessment tracker templates provided in the digital platform, students draw the graph and
writes What Went Well and Even Better If

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 Feedback using Rubrics:

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 Summary – Formative, written and verbal feedback

Types of Stamp associated (Not all

marking subject areas will utilise all What it looks like. Frequency
stamps available)

Work stamped using the whole

school policy stamper. It means
work has been checked for
Checked by your completion and correctness.). Every 1-2
teacher Teachers will acknowledge pieces in
Acknowledgment
1 such work variously through written
and checking
the use of ticks, simple marks subjects
(10/10) or corrections and/or
brief attainment based
comments.

Two Stars and a wish This

is detailed feedback which
relates to how well
students have met the
learning objectives in
classwork and homework. It
gives them the next step in
improving their work.
Quality teacher S - "Strength" or "Star" second Every 3-5
2 marking/written positive comment which pieces of work
feedback relates to the learning in written
objective/success criteria. subjects.
W - "Wish" or "What next"
one area where the success
criteria was not met/or a
suggestion/question to
encourage further thinking.
Pupils should have the
opportunity to respond to
the wish.

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Peer-assessed by:
3 Quality marking
by the students
Self-assessed
4 Verbal Feedback
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Opportunities should be built
into the scheme of work to
allow for peer and self-
assessment. Two stars and a
wish. As above but done by
__ students with support from
clear criteria from the teacher. At least thrice
This should allow students to every unit.
gain better understanding of
where they are, where you
need to be and what they need
to do to get there. This should
be
done in purple pen.
There should be opportunities
for effective verbal feedback. It
involves frequent use of open
and probing questions and an
ongoing dialogue as work
progresses towards he learning
intention/success criteria. This
may be identified on work using
the stamp. This stamp could be Atleast twice
Verbal used to indicate where you have every unit
feedback given. already gone through answers
in class. Or if all students have
made a similar mistake, as a
reminder for you to give verbal
feedback in
class and the get them to
write down your comment.
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 Student engagement with written feedback

Instead of…. The teacher…. The student…..

Writing annotations in the body of
a piece of work and giving an
overall comment
Writing annotations in the body of
a piece of work and giving an
overall comment
Writing next to good aspects of the
work
Writing the same explanation on
every piece of work when the
same mistake is made by many
students
Writing out a full solution when a
student gets a question wrong
Only writes annotations in the
body of the work
Only writes an overall comment
Puts a double tick next to the best
parts of the students work
Stamps ‘verbal feedback’ next to
this piece of work and goes over
this question in class
Writes a hint or the next step (or)
Writes WWWT? (What’s Wrong
With This?) or
RTQ (Read The Question)
Writes an overall review
highlighting two strengths and one
area of improvement
Annotates areas of the work where
the areas of strength are apparent
and where improvements need to
be made
Adds the reasons for the double
ticks
Write the correct answer
Completes the correction

Parent engagement with written feedback

Date Task Teacher Feedback Next steps targets (by Parent comment
the student)

14/01 To write an To use hyphen and semi- Nikhil seems to understand

/2016 explanation for why colon in my writing explanatory texts this unit.
the chicken crossed Thanks Miss
the road
Teacher Signature: Student Signature: Parent Signature:

The sheet may be stuck into the end of every unit, or in the mid of a unit of the relevant exercise book and may be
used for most subjects.

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 Work sampling Success criteria
F1 Marking for Literacy in all subjects

• Do students receive feedback on use of grammar, spelling, punctuation and appropriateness of language (and
subject specific language)?

F2 Frequency of Marking/Feedback

• Are there examples of work marked in detail within an appropriate period of time?

F3 Monitoring of progress

• Are pupils are able to track their progress towards their targets (through the unit, termly)?

• Do pupils have access to a tracking sheet with targets and summative assessment data?

• Are staff and students using the tracking sheets effectively? Are these kept up to date?

• Is there evidence that individual pieces of work are graded accurately?

F4 Quality of written feedback

• Do students receive good quality written feedback based on AfL and the learning criteria shared during the unit?

• Is the feedback constructive?

• Are students praised for what is good in their work?

• Do students have an opportunity to respond to the feedback/targets?

• Are students directed towards extra support/extension?

F5 Verbal feedback

• Is there evidence of verbal feedback and evidence of students’ record/respond to verbal feedback?

F6 Peer and self-assessment

• Are pupils trained how to accurately assess each other's work and their own work and provide fair and helpful
feedback.

• Is there evidence of there being planned opportunities for pupils to assess their own work and each other's work?

F7 Homework

• Is homework evident and do homework tasks show consolidation/or extension of the students’ learning?

F8 Presentation

• Do students take pride in what they are learning and recording?

• Is poor presentation and organisation tackled appropriately

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 STUDENTS’ WORK SAMPLES -
REVIEW FORM

NAME OF THE TEACHER: GRADE / SECTION:

SUBJECT: NUMBER OF BOOKS REVIEWED:

REVIEWER: DATE OF REVIEW:

Focus Acceptable Good Very Good Outstanding

Marking for literacy

Marking for literacy is clearly
is clearly evident in
Marking for evident in work. The school's
Marking for literacy is the work. There is
literacy is evident guidelines on marking for
F1 evident in exercise good evidence of the
in the work. There literacy are used consistently
books and grammar, use of the school's
is some evidence and subject - specific
spelling and Marking for Literacy
of the use of the vocabulary is acknowledged
punctuation are guidelines and
school's Marking and rewarded effectively.
commented upon subject- specific
for Literacy There is evidence of students
sensitively. vocabulary is
guidelines. acting upon teachers'
acknowledged and
comments.
rewarded.
Work is marked Work is regularly
within the agreed marked and more
F2 period and there than one example of
is at least one marking in detail (see Work is regularly marked and
Work is marked within example of F4). there are several examples of
agreed period marking in detail marking in detail (See F4).
(see F4) with the
agreed period of
time.
Target tracker sheets
There is some are completed fully
Target tracker Target tracker sheets are
F3 evidence of up to that given
sheets are completed fully and there are
completion of target point. There is clear
completed fully several examples of marked
tracker sheets by staff evidence that the
up to that given word that match the data in
and/or students work marked
point. the tracker sheets
through every unit. matches the data in
the tracker sheets

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 Feedback templates
Feedback templates
take into account Feedback takes into account
are used in a
There are examples of grade descriptors and grade descriptors and is written
constructive
F4 different feedback it is written in a clear in a clear and constructive
manner. Students’
templates used by the and constructive manner. There is evidence of
response is well-
teacher and includes manner. Students are students acting on feedback.
structured to take
opportunities for praised for their work There is evidence that students
into account cues
students’ response. and challenged where clearly know where to go in their
provided by the
work is deemed next stage of learning.
teacher.
inadequate.
Verbal feedback is Verbal feedback is
evidenced in evidenced in students'
students' work and work and there is There is evidence that students
F5 Verbal feedback is
there is evidence evidence that students clearly know where to go in
evidenced in students'
that students respond to the verbal their next stage of learning as
work (through the
respond to the feedback. a result of verbal feedback.
stamp)
verbal
feedback.
Peer – and – self Peer - and self-assessment are
assessment are often often evident in students' work
F6 Peer - and self- evident in students and as a result, students can
Peer - and self- assessment are work and students’ can evidence that they clearly know
assessment are often evident in evidence that they where to go in their next stage
sparsely evident in students' work clearly know where to of learning.
students' work go in their next stage Students are able to evidence
of that they respond to the
learning. peer's feedback.
Homework is Home work is clearly
Homework is clearly evident
evident and is evident and relates to
and marked in the same
F7 highlighted as the classroom
Homework is evident manner as other pieces of
such. Homework learning. Homework is
and highlighted as work (see F4). Homework is
is marked in the marked in the same
such. seen as an extension of
same manner as manner as other
learning and simply not a 'bolt-
other pieces of pieces of work
on' task.
work (see F4) (see F4).
Presentation and Presentation and
organization are organization are Presentation and organization
rewarded/challen rewarded/challenge d are rewarded/challenged and
F8 ged and there is and there is there is remarkable
Presentation and evidence that work remarkable improvement, where
organization are improves, where improvement, where presentation and organization
rewarded/challenged presentation and presentation and were previously inadequate.
organization were organization were Students go out of their way to
previously previously inadequate. ensure that they take pride in
inadequate. what they are learning.

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 Marking Tracker:

Expected Outcomes
(We would like our inspections report 2022 to report on similar lines)

"GEMS New Millennium School is an outstanding school... The school’s very effective marking policy is closely
adhered to by all teachers. Pupils receive detailed feedback regularly and frequently on their written work so that
they know what they did well and how to improve. They respond to teachers' marking with written comments to
demonstrate they have understood the points that have been made about their work."

GEMS New Millennium School, Al Khail (2022)

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