For the second time recently I've been inspired by something Mark Enser has blogged/tweeted. At the end of his post, Mark asks what would be the first thing you would stop doing if you were trusted to get on and teach without anyone checking up on you. I'm sure this would vary wildly depending on the school you teach in, the expectations of SLT and the policies in place. I'm certain though, that the thing I would stop doing in the same way is similar for many people. Marking It's not a surprise is it? It takes so much time that could be spent doing better things. I'm not saying I'd never look at another book again, I'd just like to stop flicking through a book to tick and flick exercises that students have already self/peer assessed, adding the odd stamp to acknowledge that I've seen their work, constantly reminding students to underline their headings or write the date in the language they're learning. So much of this is done for the benefit of the person who appears one day with a book check proforma and picks up 5 random books to check my marking. Oh, and I'll stop writing my comments in red and insisting that peer assessment is green and DIRT is in purple. Does it matter? As long as they've done the activity, the colour won't make a difference to them. No, it's there for the person checking up on me, isn't it?
I'd still check how they're getting on with those SA/PA exercises, I collect in the marks and follow up where necessary, I will still look in their books to see where the common issues are. There just wouldn't be trail of ink to prove it. I've already changed the way I give feedback as much as I can to spend only the necessary time on it. From various blogs, ResearchEd sessions and books I'm trying different ideas as much as I can, but at the end of the day I still need to tick that box on the book check form that says I've given formative feedback, with successes and clear areas for development. So I continue, but it would be nice to be trusted to do this how I deem best, not to tick boxes on a form. I'd also stop using the school imposed planner it's specific boxes and requirements and go back to planning how I want to. But the question was about one thing, not two.
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