Notes and Scribbles - Whole-Class Feedback in Primary

Marking has had some really bad press recently.  Time and again, it is blamed for teachers' workload and also for being ineffective and a waste of time.  "No Marking" policies do their rounds on the education blog-sphere every now and then.  Whole-class feedback is a popular replacement for marking, with teachers often filling out a grid with information from pupils' books instead of writing in the books themselves.  Despite this all being very persuasive and attractive, I still mark my pupils' books after every lesson. Our school has stripped our feedback policy of many marking statements but it still involves marking.  To see more about why marking is still worth doing, read the first half of this post by Chris Curtis.

By "marking", I mean a recognition of the work the child has done and an indication that the book has been checked with at least a tick or use of my most-used stamper, Checked By Your Teacher.  This helps pupils to be accountable for their work and encourages them to do their best as they know each piece will be seen by their teacher.  If necessary, I will write more in a book - particularly to praise the child for something specific or to highlight or circle errors.  To find out more about how I mark quickly and effectively, see this blog post.

In our book for primary teachers, we write about how checking is more effective than extensive marking of pupils' books.  We make it clear that recognition of the work completed is still important but that teachers can gain much from checking the work without necessarily writing anything on it.  The checking of work can then inform planning for the next lesson.

One way in which we've reduced marking expectations is to introduce whole-class feedback in the form of a journal.  I call mine "notes and scribbles" because that is simply what it is.  No grid is needed for me to gather my thoughts - I simply write what is necessary without constraints.  This is just an A4 exercise book which I use across the primary subjects.  I used to write my scribbles on post-it notes but I find this is quite useful to keep all the notes together. I write the title and date at the top of the page to track the work and then write down anything I need to remember as I'm checking books.  This includes:

• issues to address with the whole class including spelling/grammar issues, repeated misconceptions, presentation reminders.
• focus groups of children for intervention on a particular issue.
• conversations to have with individual pupils about a misconception or error.  
• strong pieces of work to show to the class or to use as a model piece for the following year.
• a piece of work to look at as a class (I always ask for the child's permission to do this).

My notes are probably complete nonsense to anyone who hasn't checked the books.  Below you can see a page for an early piece of writing in which I'm gauging pupils' strengths and weaknesses, particularly in relation to their accuracy in basic writing skills (spelling, punctuation, paragraphing).  In every child's book, I underlined 3-5 spellings for them to correct (this indicates to the child that I've read their work).  

Annotated page in my Notes & Scribbles book. Click image to enlarge.

In the next lesson, while children are finding spelling corrections, editing their work or continuing their writing, I then set to, acting on the notes I took in the lesson.  

Child A has missed out many full stops.  When I was first a teacher, I used to write "please add in full stops" or something to that effect when faced with such errors.  However, missing full stops is often an indication that pupils struggle with sentence structure.  Therefore, rather than writing in this child's book for them to find where the full stops should be OR writing details about sentence structure at the end of their work, I spend a few minutes explaining sentences and then editing this work with the pupil.  We sat together with a highlighter and went through the paragraphs, putting a yellow line where the end of a sentence came.  Independently, the child then put in the appropriate full stops and capital letters; it wasn't how to put full stops that cause the misconception, it was why.  

(For more ideas to use when looking at sentences and sentence structure with pupils, see this post.) 

Child A's work after our discussion. Red pen = child editing. Green pen = me. Highlighter = work done together.
(You can also see she has corrected her spelling of discovered after my whole-class feedback.)

Child B has muddled her sentences in paragraphs.  Rather than writing "your paragraphs are muddled" or "please sort your paragraphs" or giving a detailed description of her error and how to correct it, I spent a few minutes with her discussing paragraphs.  She quickly realised where she went wrong and we used a highlighter to start sorting the sentences into appropriate paragraphs.  Independently, she continued highlighting and then rewrote the paragraphs.

Child B's work after our discussion. Green - S.C. Johnson.  Orange - the mission. Pink - the planet.

In looking at my pupils' exercise books, there's no indication about my checking and its impact on the pupil's learning but, combined with my notes and scribbles and with a quick explanation, it's clear that checking the work made a big difference to some pupils' understanding of the basics of writing.  Feedback isn't for someone scrutinising my books; it's entirely for the benefit of my pupils and I believe both checking and marking can have a part to play.

Please Note: All work is used with parents' permission.

Feedback: Principles and Strategies to be Effective and Fast (VIDEO)

Recently, Twinkl asked me to do a Livestream video on their Facebook page.  I chose to speak about Feedback and Marking as I feel these areas are quite misunderstood in primary schools and I've learned a lot about them since qualifying.  These misunderstandings lead to a huge workload which doesn't have a great impact on children's learning.  In the livestream, I shared principles and strategies for ensuring feedback is effective and fast.

You can watch the video below. Apologies for the slightly out-of-sync audio.  You can watch the original video on the Twinkl Key Stage 2 Facebook Group (request to join and one of the Twinkl staff will accept you).

I am doing a similar livestream about whole-class reading in the same group on Thursday 26th January at 8pm so make sure you request to join the group before to watch live. 

What's in my marking kit?

Recently I tweeted this photo of my marking kit as I was sitting down to mark some Y4 writing.  There was a lot of interest in the box and its contents so I thought I'd go through what I have in it and how I use them.  The box itself is from Hobbycraft and was a bargain £5 when I bought it in the summer.  Some colleagues have gone back to buy it and been successful.  It's available in clear, pink, blue and green. 

Marking Kit

Click on an item to view it on the seller's website - it will open in a new window so you can keep reading.

Repetitive Phrases Stampers - e.g. "Please use full stops", "Take more care with your presentation" or Personalised Stampers

I first started buying stampers when I found myself using the same phrases over and over again.  These save me so much time.  

Personalised Stampers

Repetitive Phrases

Growth Mindset Stamper - e.g. "Super Effort" or "Great Work - Keep It Up"

Some work simply needs to be seen by a teacher - it may be that no in depth marking is required or that children have marked the work themselves.  Alternatively, you may need to get somewhere fast or just improve your life-work balance.  A stamper like this will help you whizz through a set of books in around 15 minutes and praise children for their effort.  

Special Stickers - e.g. Dinosaurs, Football, Minions, Frozen etc!)

Nowadays, stickers are useful for giving children information but they started life as pure rewards.  Stickers like this, which are linked to children's hobbies and passions, can give children a wonderful feeling of pride when they see it on their work.  My class love to get a special sticker, they even put in requests and are incredibly grateful when I buy some and use them on their work.  Sometimes they choose to wear the sticker instead or collect them on Reading Records.  These don't have a direct impact on learning but, in my eyes, anything which gives children excitement about learning is of value.  

"On Target" Stamper and "Target Met" stickers (could be a stamper instead)

Our target sheets have numbers so we simply put the sticker and a number. The child can then highlight it on their record.  We've found this has really enhanced children's engagement with their writing targets and the impact of them.  

Targets in action

"Your Next Step" Stamper and Coloured Dots 

These go hand in hand to encourage children with how they move on. I used to use just the stamper but I found myself writing the same thing out hundreds of times.  Instead of doing that, I now use the coloured dots to show children what their next step is and I display the code in the next lesson.  I also link the colours in with our Good, Amazing, Awesome way of challenging children.  You can read a bit about that here. 

Your Next Step in action

There are also two stampers I have which don't stay in my marking kit; they stay on my desk:

"We've Talked About This" Stamper 

Lots of people hate the idea of stampers like this and the "verbal feedback given" ones.  However I find this is very useful to carry around when helping children during a lesson. Sometimes, especially in maths, you come across children who have got lots of answers wrong.  Instead of marking each one, I just stamp thing after their incorrect work, support them to improve their understanding and then I only need to mark the work below the stamper which the child has completed after my intervention.  Sometimes I ask the child to note down what we talked about to help remind them of their mistake and their new knowledge.  Obviously, this helps anyone who is looking at your books to see what happened in that lesson too. 

We've Talked About This in action

"Adult Assisted Work" Stamper 

This is really important for assessment in this new curriculum.  I have to look through children's books to check which objectives they are able to do independently.  Every adult has access to this stamper in a lesson and it enables me to differentiate the independent work from assisted work.  

Other items

• Green pens - my choice of marking colour. I love green! 
• Random stampers - most of these I've inherited or bought very early on.  
• Highlighters - see how I use them here.
• Tabs - to show where children have forgotten to go back and respond to feedback. 
• House point stickers and headteacher's award stampers/stickers (watch out for apostrophes!)
• Stickers which praise handwriting and spelling.

Tabs in action - show where a child needs to respond to feedback but has forgotten.

Other posts about marking and feedback:
Stamper Snobs and Me
Stampers in Action
Marking Marking Speedy
Making Marking Meaningful

Please note that some of the contents of my marking kit were given to me by Brainwaves.

How Do I Make Marking Speedy and Meaningful? (EdShow15)

Please find below my presentation from the School Leaders Summit at the Education Show 2015, Birmingham NEC.

This presentation was based on these two blog posts:
Making Marking Meaningful
Making Marking Speedy

Using Highlighters in Primary

In recent weeks, there have been a couple of blog posts (from Alex and Jon) about the use of highlighters in school.  Reading these made me think about my use of highlighters so I decided to go on a highlighter hunt in books for how both the children and I use them to have an impact on learning.  I was completely surprised by how much they are used in my classroom so here are some examples of what I've found they can help with.

CHILDREN'S USE

Sentence Structure

I have written previously about how I have tried to help children sort out there sentences.  Below, you can see how the child has serious errors in their sentences.  Using the highlighters to indicate a change of sentence makes it very clear.  The pupil can then re-write the work in the correct structure.  For more information about how I tackle ingrained misconceptions about sentences, please click here.

Maths Word Problems

I know often teachers ask children to highlight the information in work problems.  I get children to highlight the question as many times children have done the working out right but have chosen the wrong piece of information for the answer.  This helps them answer the actual question they are being asked.

Thinking Blocks

The children also use highlighters in their workings out.  As a school, we use thinking blocks to help children visualise mathematics.  Sometimes, it is necessary to colour some blocks so using highlighters is much quicker than colouring in or shading.  The child below is finding fractions of a number so she has used highlighter to indicate the amount which showing her understanding of the maths concept.

Here you can see highlighters used in fraction word problems and the calculation of the answers.

Long, Chunking, Bus-Stop, Column Division Method (Or whatever else you want to call it!)

Here, highlighters help the children locate where the answer is in their working-out notes.  

Subordinating Conjunctions

When using subordinating conjunctions at the beginning of sentences, children often forget the comma.  I can't remember whether this highlighting was done by a peer or the children themselves but it has helped to highlight the important parts of the sentence: conjunction at the beginning, comma after the clause and ending punctuation.  This serves two main purposes; it helps the children do corrections if they have missed elements and it highlights the key learning so it's easier for me to mark.  

ADULT'S USE

Stampers

I have a few stampers which give different options - highlighters make it clear which part refers to the work.  Our success criteria is organised into Good/Amazing/Awesome and I have a stamp to indicate that a child needs to remember Capital Letters or Full Stops.  You can see these highlighted below. 

Addressing Misconceptions

For children who can read and understand my comments, highlighters help me in explanations of their misconceptions.  Below, I have written out the calculation and the highlighter has helped me focus her attention on her target.

Pink/Green

Many primary schools use this: Pink = Tickled Pink = Evidence of great work  Green = Growth = Things to improve.  As you can see from the photos below, I use this across their work and on our success criteria which is titled Good / Amazing / Awesome (inspired by Ian).  Sometimes I provide corrections for the green areas but often it is the child's job to correct their work.  A simple pink or green mark near the end is accompanied by a comment to show an overall assessment of their work.

Making Marking Speedy

I've previously written about how I use gel pens to Make Marking Meaningful, however I've tried a lot of strategies since my NQT year to enhance the speed of my marking.  Here are some of the ideas I've tried which work.  As with everything else in teaching, these are used when appropriate in a range of subjects! 

Answers

Note: particularly useful in maths or SPAG activities.

On the outside, this is very simple: have some form of answers available so the children can mark the work.  However, how the answers are used can affect the degree of learning taking place.  For example, sometimes children mark their own work at the end of a lesson.  They have time to complete any corrections in gel pen (read why here) and comment on their progress.  Alternatively, they check their answers halfway through the lesson to assess whether they are on track.  They then choose to continue working to become confident, move onto something more challenging or get some help to address their errors.  This ensures that all children are challenged at their own level.  Of course, children can mark each other's work and find errors that someone else has made. Sometimes I make the answers available to children throughout the lessons so they can check any one answer and get immediate feedback.  They find this really useful because they can get help straight away if it is incorrect and an adult or child can talk through the process when it is fresh in their mind.  This means any post-lesson marking can be focused on misconceptions and next steps as all corrections will have been made in the lesson.  

Peer Editing

Note: great for long pieces of writing in any subject.

I discovered this after reading through 31 fairly poor pieces of writing and despairing at the length of time it would take me to mark them.  Having looked through but not marked the work, I went back to my class and explained to them that I had chosen not to mark it because there were so many mistakes.  I felt so harsh but by the end of the next hour I knew I'd done the right thing.  Knowing their two main mistakes - tense and viewpoint (first/third person) - I'd prepared a piece of writing filled with those two errors to be the input of my next lesson.  As a class we read it through, the children realised that it sounded wrong and they corrected the errors.  Then, in pairs, they completed two activities.  Firstly, with no pens in sight, they simply read their partners work aloud back to them, word-for-word.  Both children did this as it was important to hear and realise that their errors were fairly similar early on.  Next, they edited for the mistakes, corrected spellings and improved words and phrases if they had time.  The quality of work I had back in was substantially higher than it had been and it meant my marking time was cut by over 50%.  At the end of the editing process, I asked the children to comment on how they found it.  It was clear from what they wrote that they had got a lot out of it and wanted to do it more often.  Therefore I've added a similar lesson during most long pieces of writing.  

Hold A Pen

Note: Useful in any lesson! 

Make sure you, your TA and any other adults are armed with a pen during the lesson.  Give the instruction that if they work with a child, they should quickly mark their work to get an idea of how they can help.  As a teacher, this means as you verbally check work you can leave a mark to show this and any workings done with you stand out.  This makes tracking progress easier as independent or adult-assisted work is obvious.  I've found children like having their work marked during the lesson if there's time and it's a wonderful feeling to open the next book in the massive pile and find it already marked! 

Stampers

Note: This costs a bit at first (£5-10 each) but saves so much time in the long run and they last ages!
I have written at length about why I use stampers and which ones are most effective.  Quite simply, they are the one strategy which has had the biggest impact on reducing the time I spend marking.  I cannot recommend them highly enough and I'd encourage anyone aiming to reclaim some of their work-life balance to invest in a few effective ones.  

Underlining

Note: Particularly useful in grammar activities and English lessons.

As part of the plenary in certain lessons, I ask children to underline in gel pen the main elements of the learning.  For example, if they have be learning to use subordinating conjunctions, then I ask them to underline the ones they have used.  That way I can see if they have used the correct conjunctions with commas if necessary and check whether the words they have used make sense in their sentences.  This sometimes highlights to children they they haven't used any or many and gives them a chance to correct this before the work is marked.  When I come to mark the work, the coloured lines guide my eyes to where I need to look to assess the extent to which children have achieved the learning objective.

Favourites

Similar to underlining, I sometimes ask children to put a *star* by their favourite sentence, fact, calculation, word problem etc as is appropriate to the lesson.  I explain that I will look at all their work but will mark their favourite in detail.  Likewise, I sometimes ask children to circle any which they have struggled with or which they think are incorrect so I can look closely to help them with those.  Again, my eyes are drawn to the symbols used so that my marking can be completed quicker. 

Codes

Note: Useful for presentation errors.

Thankfully we don't have a whole-school marking code which I have to stick to religiously.  I'm not a big fan of long marking codes as children can spend longer deciphering the marking than actually learning from it.  That being said, I do use codes to improve children's presentation; mainly 4 symbols.  T indicates they need to write the title (as required by the school - only 1 or 2 words).  D shows they should write the date. U implies they should underline the title or date and I draw a simple tree if they are wasting too much paper (save the trees!).  These 4 codes take hardly any time to draw, save me writing sentences and ensure the children can understand and respond quickly to presentation errors.  

Making Marking Meaningful

Ask any (KS2) teacher to name the task which takes them the most time and you are pretty much guaranteed to get the response, "marking".  At the beginning of your teaching career, it feels like an endless slog with no light at the end of a very long tunnel.  Along the way, you borrow or create certain strategies to reduce the amount of time you spend on it; providing answer sheets, peer marking and, a favourite of mine, using assessment stampers. But still, it is the task which takes the biggest proportion of your time.   

In my opinion, there are two main purposes for marking books:

Firstly, it tells me what I need to know in order to personalise the learning in the next lesson.  This may require me to change the learning objective, make activities easier or harder, move groups around or go back over something which has not been achieved.  It tells me who got it and is ready to move on, who struggled through and who doesn't have a clue.  Also, I gain an insight into the volume of work produced in the lesson; with 30+ children in a class, laziness can sometimes go under the radar if books are not checked regularly.  

Secondly, it gives me the perfect opportunity to truly personalise the learning for each individual child, through comments, questions, suggestions, instructions, quick revisions to support them in their learning, whatever point they're at. 

Marking will achieve the first purpose if children's learning is assessed every lesson.  This doesn't require any written comments or response but could be accompanied by a stamper for the sake of SLT/OfSTEd or anyone else you answer to! I usually like to use a piece of scrap paper, post it note or the back of the lesson plan to keep notes, write groups or reorganise the next plan.  However, it is the second purpose, which only becomes meaningful if acted on by the pupils, that I would like to focus on.

The Problem

Since working with @HTBruce, I have been a big believer in ensuring the time taken on a task results in an equal or better impact on the children's learning. Therefore it hit me hard in my NQT year when, despite my hours of effort marking their books, my class were not reading, let alone responding to, the personalised comments I had lovingly written or prepared for them.  I had learned at University the importance of feedback and my comments were appropriate and formative.  I was also aware of my school's assessment policy and was only marking in depth as often as was required of me.  However I hadn't learned the importance of routine and so the comments were making zero impact on the learning while making a big impact on my time - Definitely not the right way round.  

Early on, I discovered stampers and they helped me cut my marking time (read how and why here) but they still didn't solve my problem. How could I get the children to read and respond to every comment I made? After all, if I was going to spend even the smallest amount of time writing a comment, I needed to ensure it would be seen.  I started off giving time in the school day, here and there, to respond to comments. This solved a bit of the problem but there was still about a third of my class who just weren't reading them.  It wasn't until this last year, my third in teaching, that I created a routine that meant no comment was left unread or un-responded-to. Simultaneously it improved the quality of my feedback as I was seeing the impact it was having and could adjust it accordingly.  

My Solution - Gel Pens!

Having dabbled around in different routines and strategies, I started the new year armed with a class set of gel pens.  Basically the rule was this: no one was to write the title and date (as required by the school every lesson) without having initialed or responded to any previous comments in gel pen.  Why gel pen? I hear you cry! Simply because it creates a physical movement before and after responding to comments and the children LOVE using them! 

At the beginning of lessons, every child starts with a gel pen.  They initial all comments, including stampers, and then they respond appropriately.  This gives the added bonus of their corrections or new work being in a different colour so when I/SLT/OFSTEd/whoever looks through their books, the corrections are easy to distinguish from their original lesson work.  Once they have read, initialed and responded, they switch to their normal writing implement for the start of the lesson.  

Once it was clear the gel pens were working for my marking, I added to their use; they became our assessment tool.  As a class we discussed assessment and feedback and what it meant.  Then we came up with a list of what we would use gel pens for, as well as reading, initialling and responding to marking comments:

- doing corrections (at the end of a lesson or after I'd marked it)

- underlining the words which linked to the learning so they were obvious

- putting stars next to their favourite sentence/calculation/piece

- leaving questions for me at the end of a lesson

- leaving comments for me about how they found the lesson

- marking own or other people's work

- leaving comments on other people's work

- when they helped someone else in a lesson they used gel pen for their notes and initialed it so I knew

- circling where mistakes are in own/peer's book.

Using the gel pens has made my marking more meaningful.  The reading/responding of comments has increased to 100% and it has created learning conversations in books when there is no time in class.  Children have become much more willing to make mistakes and they enjoy hunting for corrections.  At the end of each lesson, they now reflect on their learning (in gel pen) and write any questions/comments about the lesson in their book.  They are expectant of comments or activities which will move them forward when they read my marking; that in turn makes me more willing to write them. Also, they make my marking more regular and focused on the children's learning, particularly because they call me up on it if I forget! Overall, I enjoy marking more (shock horror!) because of the anticipation of children's responses and the knowledge of the impact it will have; now the time I'm putting into marking is finally making a difference.

Gel pens in action:

Stampers in Action

My previous post explained why I use stampers.  Below are some pictures of the stampers I use, with short explanations of how I use them and why they're effective for me; sometimes for formative feedback, sometimes to save me time and often for both reasons!

Firstly, here are some group shots (!!) of the stampers I have in my trusty marking box! See below for the stampers in action in order from most formative to least formative (in my very humble and inexperienced opinion!).

Personalised Stampers

Pre-Inked Stampers

Stack-N-Stamp Stampers

1) Let's chat about ______ on M Tu W Th F

The red pen shows how she thought she did in the lesson and the blue shows her comments after I "chatted" with her about carrying.  I try and tick the stamper when I've "chatted" with the child but obviously I forgot to here.  With many things in education, it's important to make a habit of checking whether children have this stamper in their books OR make the children get into the habit of always requesting to chat!

This was purchased from Primary Teaching Services here. Please be aware that with these personalised stampers, Comic Sans font is the best - others can smudge.

2) Well Done! Your next step is:

This is so simple but it helps children know where they're going and also helps me group the children for the next lesson according to their next step.  I tend to move groups around all the time so there's no talk of "moving up" or "moving down" a group.  Every few lessons they move into "the right group" with children who are doing the same activity and learning the same thing.

This was purchased from Primary Teaching Services here.

 3) Verbal feedback given.

I don't use this one very often, but it's so useful when I do.  This stamp comes into its own if, as I'm floating around the class giving mini-inputs to groups or individuals, I come across children who have had a go but are totally stuck and very wrong. I stamp where they have got up to, explain where they are going wrong, model the skill again and then they carry on.  That way, when I come to mark their books later, I ignore what was done above the stamper as I have already seen it and know that it's wrong and I can focus on what they did after my input.  Thus saving me time and reminding me who I helped and when.

This was purchased from Primary Teaching Services here.

4) Teacher assisted work. / TA assisted work.
There aren't any pictures for this one but it's fairly self-explanatory.  This isn't for the children's use but for the use of any adults who look at the books (including me!).  It helps when it comes to completing summative levels - I can tell what the child can do independently and what has been done with help. Simple, effective, time-conserving but not particularly learning-based.

This was purchased from Primary Teaching Services here (Teacher) and here (TA).

5) Practice makes perfect! Repeat ___ times:

I made this stamper in my second year of teaching as a way of quickly getting children to practise spellings without me having to write more than the word.  I was writing the same thing over and over again so, hey presto, I made it into a stamper! This one is mainly effective in saving me time but, without it, would I have the time to get them practising their spellings if I had to write that all out: NO!

This was purchased from Primary Teaching Services here. Please be aware that with these personalised stampers, Comic Sans font is the best - others can smudge.

6) You've achieved your learning objective. / You're working towards your learning objective.

A no-brainer - it's simply to save me time when children have "got it" and perhaps we are moving onto a new topic.  It gives me time to focus on children who haven't "got it" and spend more time explaining in their books:

This was purchased from Primary Teaching Services here (achieved) and here (working towards).

7) Checked by your teacher.

This stamper is so useful for homework diaries, reading records and anything that you have to check! Bang, stamp, DONE! This photo shows how I sometimes use it in lessons.  I think here I asked children to tell me if they had done it before, how they found the learning and what they'd like to do next.  Obviously, all the questions were asked to the class as a whole so I didn't have to write them down - lazy, I know, but easy! 

This was purchased from Primary Teaching Services here. 

8) Headteacher's Award (I know the stamper has no apostrophe - it annoys me too!!)

Just a simple stamper in a totally different colour which I use for amazing pieces of work.  The kids love opening their books and seeing a red stamper and wander off to the head's office, rightfully proud! A quick note on the highlighters - this is what we use for more detailed feedback.  Pink = tickled pick = I love this.  Green = Grow me green = this needs improving.  We highlight over work that is skill practice and write it under for neat pieces of work.  As you can see, this child has thanked me for her "tickled pink" comments and has ticked to say she has gone through and checked (and hopefully corrected!) her spellings. 

You can buy one with the correct apostrophe here (black) or my grammatically awful stamper here (red).

Please do let me know if you have any other stampers which you find particularly effective - I'm always in the market for a new stamper or two.  Also, leave me a comment if you think there are any stampers that you use in a different way - I'm always up for magpie-ing other people's great ideas! 

Stamper Snobs and Me

Recently, I blogged about my favourite assessment stamper.  Many people on Twitter commented that they liked the idea and could see the benefit, some even purchased their own and have kept me up-to-date with their use of it.  There are teachers, however, who look down on the humble stamper and, while pursing their lips, exclaim "I don't believe in stampers".  Claims like "the children don't read them", "they ruin work" and "they show laziness" flow from the mouths of these educators who I like to call the "Stamper Snobs".  One of the most frustrating things about these teachers is that sometimes they thrust their snobby attitude to stampers on their colleagues.  I would find it very difficult to work with a Stamper Snob and they would cry looking through my books.

I ♥ Stampers!

Anyone who's read "The Lazy Teacher's Handbook" will know that laziness can lead to effective learning, independence, meta-cognition and, the holy grail of all teachers, a better work-life balance.  For me, assessment stampers help me in my quest to become the ultimate "Lazy Teacher".

During my NQT year I found myself working late into the night, every night, and almost all weekend, yet I was still behind on my marking.  When I was assessing children's learning, they weren't reading it, let alone responding to it and so its effectiveness was very low, probably zero. That was, until I discovered the humble stamper.

The first stampers in my collection were "You've achieved your learning objective" and "You're working towards your learning objective."  Nowadays, these are among my least-used and least-effective stampers, however at the time they saved me many minutes a night writing the same thing on many children's work.  It allowed me to look in more detail at work where children hadn't achieved the learning objective.  I felt it was important not to have a "You've not yet achieved your learning objective" stamper because that wouldn't save me time or encourage or help the child.

Not long after making my first purchase, I realised I was writing the same phrases over and over again on children's work.  Having found that the first two stampers had saved me so much time, I invested in a few staple stampers.  They cost around £5 each and often I would buy them when there were % off deals but I knew I would reap the benefits as they would last a long time and save me so much time.  Why bother repetitively writing long phrases when you can stamp them?

As I learned more about effective assessment, brilliantly guided by an amazing mentor, I began to understand the value of pushing children on in their learning.  The next few stampers said "Great learning today! Now try this: " and after the stamper I would write a short activity for them to complete which moved them forward in their learning.  There was also a "Well Done! Your next step is: " stamper.  This one not only saved me time during the marking process but it also meant that in the next session, I didn't have to tell each child what they were working on; they already knew.

The inspiration for my favourite stamper came from my Headteacher at the time who used "Let's chat" in books to give detailed verbal feedback.  I really liked this as it was less aggressive as "See me" or "Please discuss".  Thus I created a "Let's chat about __________ on M Tu W Th F" stamper for me to fill in so I had a record of any discussions and children had a place to respond to their new learning next to the stamper. So lazy and yet so, so effective in moving children forward.

By the end of my time at my first school, I was two years into my teaching career and I was spending much less time assessing children's work.  There was still a lot of improvement needed in the effectiveness of all my comments and most of what was needed was down to the children.  I was putting in a lot of work and money to make these assessment stampers effective, but many children were still not responding to or even reading what I had put.

Enter the Gel Pen!

Armed with a class set of gel pens, and probably a few more stampers, I started in a new school.  This is the year I promised myself I would be a lazy teacher. I vowed to make the children work harder than me and, for effective assessment to reign, I created an important learning habit from day one.

The school policy states that children should write a title and the date at the top of their work for the session but, to achieve my goal, I added a twist to this.  Before my class do the title and date they need to use a gel pen to do 3 things.
1) Do any corrections from last lesson.
2) Read and initial comments (which often included stampers).
3) Respond to any comments or stampers.

This has transformed the learning ethos of my class. The children now have clarity in their learning; they know where they have come from, where they are at and where they are going to. They have become more independent and in control of what they are doing and this has meant they request my help when they have any misconceptions.

The children love having the stampers in their books and know what they all mean. Comments like "Thank you", "Ok Mrs P" and "I'll try" show me that they've read and understood them and occasionally they use a gel pen to tell me if they think they should have had a stamper (normally if I've forgotten).  The effect that the stampers is having on the children's learning has also been noted by colleagues and SLT.

The stampers I have help to guide me to give formative feedback.  They allow me to focus on giving the most effective comments.  They help my children to understand how they are doing and where they have room for improvement.  They stop me from writing the same thing over and over again and save me the frustration of this.  They help me to alter the next lesson most appropriately. They mean my comments are neater and more concise.  But most of all, they have given me time.
And, as any teacher knows, time is a rare and precious gift.

See photos of how I use the stampers I have and links to buy them on the next post.