Confidence lost in GCSE and A level marking.

Some facts and figures have just been published about the amount of appeals and remarks that have been requested this year by schools for GCSE and A Level candidates.

The Telegraphs sums up the basics quite nicely here - Telegraph - appeals

I was staggered to see that 305 400 GCSE papers were asked to be remarked - a 50% increase on last year.

Let's just let those numbers sink in for a moment....

Each Year 11 has about half a million students in.  It seems about 60% of these students had a result appealed on.  That shows a huge lack of confidence in the exam system.  In an average school of 200 students in year 11, 120 of them are having one GCSE grade challenged.

In addition, appeals cost money.  The amount an appeal cost varies from exam board to exam board but a fee of £25 would be on the conservative side.

Across the country, 305 400 appeals costing £25 totals just over £7.5 million....

Around 20% of these appeals resulted in the grade being changed and the cost of the appeal is refunded to whomever paid it but the time and admin cost to the school is not repaid.

At A level there is a similar picture, with 145 000 grades being challenged.  These generally seem a little bit more expensive to appeal so let's assume £30 (which is definitely on the conservative side).   145 000 appeals at £30 a time gives a total cost of £4.3 million.

So, in total, from one exam season, schools have spent well over £10 million on appeals allowing for the refunds on successful appeals.   This money should be spent in so many more fruitful ways and I am surprised this information has caused such small ripples in the media in our times of austerity.

So, what are the solutions?

1.  Schools need to be clear on their appeals process.  The process is expensive and schools have a responsibility to only appeal where there is a good chance of a grade change.

2.  The exam board needs to mark to a far higher standard.  The checks on markers need to be more rigorous and regular.  In addition, schools need to be made aware of this process of checking so that they become less likely to appeal.

3.  With more and more subjects now being examined in the summer, the pressure on exam boards to turn around results in time for results day is only going to increase.  Exam boards need to up their game.

4.  Finally, the key solution would for an exam board to promise to return all exam papers to the school as part of the fee paid to enter students.  This would give teachers the opportunity to see exactly how their students had performed and to use this to inform their future teaching.  I know it would then cost a bit more to enter students but would probably save money in the long run for schools as appeals would become less likely.

It would just take one exam board to promise it in one subject for it to take off.....

There have to be better ways of spending £12 million pounds...

Things I wish I had known as an NQT - marking!

Marking

Whether you are a primary or secondary school teacher, marking is going to become a key part of your job.  It will take up a lot of your time and it is important that this time is used for the maximum benefit of the students.

Most schools now have a marking policy which you must follow.  Consistency in feedback for students across subjects is hugely under rated in my opinion.  However, many marking policies are on purposefully vague to allow teachers to use their professional judgement.  Indeed in some schools you will still not find a marking policy.

So, what should you mark?

Firstly, you will never be able to mark every piece of work a student completes.  You might be able to keep it up for a few weeks but you will be working to midnight every night and will eventually go off sick for a few weeks with exhaustion.  You are no use to your students when you are off sick so I hope we all agree you can’t mark everything.

Secondly, the marking needs to be purposeful.  The days of “tick and flick” are long behind us, thankfully so!  Students need to understand the marking which must inform them how they can move forward with this piece of work.

Finally, it must be done by the teacher.  I am all for peer marking and self-marking but there comes a time when a teacher needs to give formal feedback.  When you have work to mark I advise you to hide away at school and get it done.  I speak from experience that if I take home 45 mins of marking I am able to make it last 2 or 3 hours.  Additionally, I can easily socialise away an hour at school with other teachers when I could have got my marking done.  When you have marking to do, hide yourself away and get your head down and get it done!

Here is what I do.

My school has a vague marking policy.  So, at the start of September I explain to my students how and when their work will be marked.  I do this and encourage them to hold me to account to this as I hold them to account with their homework etc.

Our students have maths for 4 hours a week and I typically teach 4 groups, although I used the same idea when I was an NQT teaching 22 hours a week.

I mark on a 2 week cycle.  For us this is 8 lessons. 

I explain to the students that in lessons 1, 2 and 3 they will learn about a new objective or two.  For simplicity sake let’s say this is working out how to do long division and long multiplication.  The three lessons will have a range of tasks, peer marking, self assessment etc.  At the end of lesson 3 they will get a homework that is due in on lesson 5.  (The hope being the can ask for a bit of help in lesson 4 if they got stuck).

I always offer additional homework online (e.g. www.mymaths.co.uk) but always provide a worksheet for homework.  This worksheet is also emailed to the student's school email account so they can print a spare out if they have lost the original.

In lesson 5 I collect the homework in and give each question a simple tick or cross.  I normally give a score e.g. 8 / 10.  

In lesson 6 the students are challenged to figure out where they went wrong whilst working with a partner.  If they scored 10 / 10 I have extension work available.  In some of these lessons I have to re-teach some aspects of the objective again.  Often, in lesson 6, I spend a lot of time extending the topic.

In lesson 7 they have a formal 30 minute assessment that I have written.  It is a bit of work in the first year but once you have the tests they will always be useful!  Ideally, the whole department would join in and help you write them.  We have 60 min lessons and I would spend the first 30 mins revising.  This gives the students some experience at how to revise which becomes so important for their A Levels.

After lesson 7 this piece of work is formally marked.  I have found that the more able students prefer to do this assessment in a separate book and the lower ability students prefer doing it on the sheet.

My formal marking gives them a score or percentage.  I am not comfortable giving them a GCSE grade or KS3 Band at this point but will let them know what grade the objective examines.

When the student gets their assessment back I have done the following.

1.       They get a mark / percentage.

      2.    They get an effort number for the past 7 lessons (1 is rubbish, 5 is excellent.  You can't get a 5 without          good, on time, homework).

      3.    I pick out something they have done well either on the test or in the previous 2 weeks.  (E.g. you have          asked some very probing questions recently)

      4.      I highlight what they need to do next to get better at this topic (E.g. your long multiplication is great but         you need to now practise multiplying with decimals).

Lesson 8 is my key lesson as each student will have a different target (number 4 above).  However, I have found that because I fortnightly assess, the class will only have 2 or 3 different targets between them.  Lesson 8 is spent giving the students the opportunity to reflect on their test and give them the opportunity to go back over some learning and demonstrate they can do the objectives they got wrong.

Lesson 8 can be quite difficult to plan but www.mymaths.co.uk can be very useful here as you can set different students different work which allows you to give attention to smaller groups as and when they need it.  

For the last 20 minutes of the lesson students are to re-do the test questions they got wrong (in silence).  I project the answers at the end for them to self-mark or copy down.  By the end of lesson 8 every student has a copy of the correct answers for the test.  

Those who still find it a complete mystery are encouraged to come and see me after school to sort out the issues.   I will also phone a couple of parents whose youngsters have impressed me during the past 2 weeks at this time.

Obviously, I stagger it at the start of term so that my classes don’t all get to lesson 7 on the same day as this would be a lot of marking and planning in one evening!

My marking system isn’t perfect but I think it works quite well for the students and I feel it is a good use of my marking time. 

Let me know what you intend to do and whether it works!