Work scrutiny – What’s the point of marking books?

Thanks Tom
I’m not unsympathetic to the plight of scientists. Of course understanding concepts is key (it is in English too) but that is precisely why marking is so vital. If you haven’t marked the thier books how do you know whether they’ve understood the lesson? And that’s why marking is planning. Obviously this doesn’t have to mean that you blindly make students repeat the same mistakes – as a professional you need to judge exactly how your marking will inform your planning.
There is no defence for not marking though.

Read through this with interest. We’ve instigated a WWW/EBI format across the whole school using specific blue forms so SLT can pin point that kind of marking. In Science this has ‘devolved’ into feedback from end of unit tests which come around all too quickly. I appreciate the comment about beautiful bookwork but is there value in a subject like science for note taking to be a little less rigorous and the focus of our marking to be this communication of ideas and concepts? I think back to numerous training sessions where my notes weren’t worth marking but they helped me formulate ideas or at least process what was important.

Sorry but I disagree. I teach ict computing business. All on pc. Nothings printed out. Wastes to.e, costs money,needs space. I go round whole class every lesson, assess and give feedback immediately. Suggest how to improve grades. Check again after while to check.
Since school did not understand this, had to print out loads of work before inspection, wasting paper, tome, money and remark.just to tick that box. Kids had current grades effort atl on whiteboard most lesson. If they improved they got immediate gratification.
i have illegible writing too. So pointless exercise. but no one would listen.
hope I explained myself well enough.

This is all very interesting, so much so that I am writing a comment, which I have never done before on any blog! I agree with what you say, but thought I’d share my own experience.
I teach science and have been searching for the ultimate marking strategy for some time. I think I am almost there and is certainly along the lines of what you are advocating.
I think it comes down to this: In my subject, there is a lot of content. In my mind, the key to understanding is having as much opportunity as possible to explore, problem solve and discuss ideas. Talking is much more time-efficient than writing; as a result, my lessons regularly involve no book work at all. Mini-whiteboard writing, yes. Small group discussion, yes. But formal writing or worksheets – no. The result is that we cover content faster, more thoroughly, but without the unnecessary notes in books that I often have little time to mark anyway (what used to happen? books would inevitably be marked badly because I was time-pressured, so any written work containing misconceptions could go uncorrected or be corrected at too late a stage and the students didn’t take anything from it). Now, I get to move around my class, have great conversations with my class and pick up misconceptions at an early stage, before they are committed to formal answers on paper.
But, of course, they still need to be able to give good written answers. It is a skill that needs to develop. So, rather than giving pointless homework, I give formative homework tasks every two or three weeks. This is done on google docs (although when I first trialled it, it was done in textbooks). I set a question and give clear assessment criteria, all of which are fairly open in style, but still show the student what is expected of them. This is a mastery assessment technique, so the marking takes place in the form of comments and questions and the homework continues until I am happy that the student has reached the necessary standard. So the piece of work may go back and forth several times for one student, as they refine their answer / technique or address any misunderstandings. Another student may be spot on first time, so they go no further (unless I choose to push them more). The beauty of this is that students HAVE to read my comments and make improvements until they are at the desired level. It doesn’t eat into lesson time, it’s valuable homework and, most importantly, the kids really value it. It’s important that they understand that they have to keep on addressing my questions and comments until they reach the necessary standard of work – after a few tasks I saw a real improvement in their first draft, because they didn’t want to have to keep re-doing it; they gained more pride in their work. And I saw a real improvement in end of topic test scores – we were moving into an area of deep understanding that just hadn’t been there for many of them before.
So I advocate students to talk more, write less and teachers to set less but smarter homework – mark smart!

Thanks for this, David – though I’m coming to it a little late, in several senses!
I taught English between 1980 and 2010 – I was a teaching head for the last ten years. Blogs such as this one make me think back to my practice and what I, the pupils and also the staff I worked with gained from/learnt from marking (and how it could have been better!). I was also an exam marker between 1983 and 1993 – different from marking as a channel of feedback to students but still interesting in terms of accuracy of assessment.
One thing that particularly struck me was your comment: “Middle leaders should be scrutinising their teams’ books regularly and sharing the findings in a non-judgmental but in a way which very clear about their high expectations. This is just too important to leave to chance”. I became Head of English in 1989 and stayed in the role until 1993. It seems to me now that that was a very different world – National Curriculum/key stage testing/league tables/Ofsted just coming in. I think as HoD at that time I spent much more of my time and energies as an administrator than middle leaders (a term we didn’t even use then) currently do – one of the (many) ways in which education has moved forward positively since my first years of teaching.
I realise how much more effective I would have been as a HoD if I HAD used work scrutiny to initiate dialogue with the members of my department and as part of the balance of support/challenge in my leadership of the team. We DID discuss work/assessing work together when we moderated GCSE (we did an English/English Lit dual certification qualification which was 100% coursework – the most satisfying and rewarding exam course I ever taught! I was a marker too, so spent a week at the NEAB, as it was, each summer, moderating samples from all centres and checking accuracy/reliability of marking).
Since finishing as a head I do various things including consultancy work and I am involved in ML training so I will be able to use blogs such as yours in the training of aspiring and new HoDs – thanks.
One last thing – I read here (and in David Fawcett’s blog on Critique which I’m also going to RT) the Berger ‘If it isn’t perfect it isn’t finished’ quotation and that makes me very uneasy. I absolutely agree about not accepting sloppy work, but there’s a world of difference between sloppy and perfect. Three of the six schools I taught in were selective girls’ schools and bright girls can have a particular problem with not handing in anything they deem not to be ‘perfect’ and you have to stop them sometimes doing a ridiculous number of drafts (drafting is good but you need to know when something is good enough and then move on to something else) because they felt anything less than perfection wasn’t acceptable. I’d say aim high and have aspirations, but also be realistic and reasonable in your expectations of yourself and don’t beat yourself up if you aren’t hitting ‘perfect’ every time!
Interested to know what you think. Sorry this reply is a bit long….(verbose English teacher…)