INTENT

At St Anselm’s we believe that a successful quality marking and feedforward policy will contribute to all children being active participants in their learning, enabling them to reach their academic and personal potential.

IMPLEMENTATION

Feedback helps all parties - teachers, pupils and parents - to understand the strengths and areas to develop in the learning process. In striving to ensure feedback is effective, we:

● Provide it in a timely manner.

● Provide clear information to children about the strengths and weaknesses of their learning.

● Encourage children to strive and improve and promote independence of self-correcting.

● Direct children to what they need to do to improve their work and the next steps they need to take.

● Identify achievements and the next steps in their learning.

● Relate it to the aims and expectations 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 through next steps.

● Be read by pupils and time should be given for them to improve their work.

● Use our findings to inform future planning and next steps in learning.

● Use it as a tool for teacher assessment.

IMPACT

Why do we mark children’s work?

● To help teachers monitor children’s progress and to diagnose what has not been understood so as to assist forward planning and learning;

● To provide helpful feedback to children so that: their needs are identified and we can discuss with them what they find difficult and the next steps they need to take;

● To ensure that children’s achievements are recognised thus giving encouragement and building confidence;

● To ensure set tasks have been carried out to an expected standard.

Peer and Self Assessment

From the Early Years upwards, pupils will be involved in the assessment process. We expect pupils to take ownership of their learning and have many opportunities to reflect through peer and self-assessment.

● Teachers will share the aims and expectations of the learning with pupils in all lessons;

● We encourage pupils to see themselves as the ‘first markers’ and audience for their learning. Children should be encouraged to find their OWN mistakes and to check and improve their own work individually or with the help of a peer before showing their work to the teacher;

● Teachers plan for feedback to take place in the weekly RE Feed forward sessions.

Children’s response to marking and feedback:

All staff emphasize the importance of understanding the marking and feedback system and the positive effect the process has upon the pupils. Close reflection and review of the teachers’ marking by the pupils is imperative, otherwise it negates the precious time the teacher has spent upon it, and does little to improve learning.

Children are given discrete time - in the timetabled Feed Forward session - to read and respond to the written feedback the teacher has provided. Children should be encouraged to ask for clarification, if they do not understand a comment and should be clear about what they need to do in their next piece of work, as a result of the feedback they have received.

Children are expected to respond to the written feedback, either by correcting their mistake in purple pen or by writing a reply.

Quality teacher Next Step marking to ‘close the gap’ or extend:

There are three types of Next Steps:

1. Reteach – A child has a misconception or error and the teacher provides a scaffolded response to get them unstuck and to make progress.
2. Consolidation- A child needs more practise, or the teacher wants to assess if they are able to demonstrate a skill independently.
3. Further Challenge / Extend- A child has demonstrated secure understanding during the lesson and so is offered a challenge or a new context.

EYFS

In EYFS, marking and feedback strategies include:

● Verbal Praise

● Stickers and stamps

● Written annotations

● short and narrative observations (written)

● Annotation of work and photographs by staff

● Oral dialogue with children about their play, work or special books