Play 12

Live marking in Shed Loads of Practice

What is it?

Live marking is timely (within a timeframe that is meaningful to their learning) and specific (to the key learning objective that the student is aiming to secure in that period of learning). Live marking usually takes place during the ‘shed loads of practice’ (SLOP) phase of a lesson. At this point in the lesson, students are ready to demonstrate their understanding independently for a sustained period of time. As they do this, teachers should live mark and update their DPR, updating their progress as well as creating a veneration for success.

Why is it important?

Live marking and updating the DPR aligns with the Education Endowment Foundation’s 2021 guidance report’s feedback principles:

lay the foundations for effective feedback, with high-quality initial teaching that includes careful formative assessment.
deliver appropriately timed feedback, which focuses on moving learning forward.
plan for how pupils will receive and use feedback using strategies to ensure that pupils will act on the feedback offered.

Instant gratification: with live marking and seeing progress via the DPR, students are motivated. Students love the acknowledgment, feedback and approval of their teachers. They feel successful from it. With DPR updates and live marking, this success is felt ‘early and often’ – a key lever of motivation (Motivated Teaching, Mccrea).

Effective live marking is…	Live marking is NOT…
pegged to the curriculum: specific to the DPR KO of that lesson	marking that is separate to the DPR KO of that lesson/topic
action based: if it is a task, the student can ‘complete it’ to move them forward in their learning	vague commentary eg. great work. This is a grade 5.
addresses common misconceptions or high frequency errors: this reduces their likelihood of making the error in the first place	marking that does not ‘intervene’ in their work to help ‘move learning forward’

What to do:

Plan SLOP time

Set up your lesson so students have enough time to apply what you have taught them.

Intellectually prepare appropriate and enough SLOP task(s) linked to the planned curriculum.

Pre-empt likely errors.

Set the conditions

Front load your instructions for SLOP with means of participation: your students must understand the time, the conditions (silent) and the task, with the (coded) success criteria.

Display the DPR in teacher view.

3:30:30

3: remain at swivel for 3 minutes so they see you watching.

30: go to your first student for 30 seconds and live mark.

30: look up to check all are on task.

Repeat the 30:30 in 30 second bursts.

Live mark and DPR

Circulate. Hunt for what students have not achieved from the success criteria (play 13). Track for common errors.

Live mark.

Celebrate success and update DPR as appropriate. Students will notice.

Circulate and reinforce

Students should respond to your live marking straight away.

Check that they do this as you circulate around the classroom.

When you spot a common error, stop the class and re-teach.

Normalising merits

Hunt, don't punt