Live Marking: A Time-Saving Solution for Teachers?

Verbal feedback. Instant live marking vs written marking. Is the latest educational research pointing towards a shift away from written marking?

Live marking is a term that is being thrown around a lot in the world of primary and secondary education. But what is it, and why is it becoming increasingly popular among teachers? In this blog post, we’ll explore the concept of live marking. We’ll discuss why it’s being seen as a way to reduce marking workload and improve work-life balance for primary and secondary teachers.

Could live marking be the answer to reducing teacher workload and improving student verbal feedback?

What is live marking?

Live marking is a method of providing effective feedback on student work while they are still in the process of completing it. This is in contrast to ‘traditional marking’, where the teacher marks all of their students’ books outside of the lesson.

The idea is to give students instant feedback on their work. It enables them to make adjustments and improvements while they are still engaged in the learning process.

Supporting evidence for this stems from the Education Endowment Foundation’s 2016 Marking Review, and has resulted in schools moving towards marking that is ‘timely’ and ‘specific.’

Note: a clear system of learning objective (L.O.) and success criteria (S.C.) must be understood by students for this to work effectively. Students will need to be able to respond to the feedback they receive in relation to the lesson’s objectives, and to be confident in self/peer assessment and in editing and improving their work.

(this is also true in relation to ‘traditional marking’, it may just be less noticeable!)

How does it work in practice?

Below is an overview of how the principles of live marking can work in every lesson:

1. First things first, every lesson should have a specific learning objective. LOs should be easily accessible to all involved in learning – students, teachers, and parents.

2. During one lesson, it’s important to make sure that there is time set aside for students to apply what they have learned. This can be done through extended writing or other main learning activities.

3. To help your students achieve the LO, the S.C. should clearly lay out what is expected of them. This can be displayed on the board or in books. As the students work, the teacher can use the S.C. to identify what is missing in their work and write it down. Encourage the students to respond to this feedback immediately before continuing with their work. This ensures that feedback is ‘appropriately timed’ and focused on ‘moving learning forward.’

The “live” nature of this technique allows you to be aware of any misconceptions that may arise and adapt your teaching as necessary. It also enables you to accurately assess your students’ learning and update their progress in real-time.

How effective is live marking and feedback?

One of the key benefits of this method is the ability to provide targeted and effective verbal feedback. Students that really need to be pushed and challenged can be put on the right path with the flourish of a highlighter. (“Anything I tag in pink, I want you to ask yourselves, ‘how could this sentence be improved?'”)  Students that benefit from concise praise can be shown exactly what they’ve done correctly so far – (“I’m highlighting your most powerful descriptive sentence in green, excellent work!”) – a powerful motivator. 

Live feedback is arguably the best way to remove the temptation for teachers to frantically spruce up their books just before a ‘book look’ or marking moderation. This is of no use to anyone, least of all the students!

A further advantage of live marking is the ability to provide more immediate feedback. This can be especially beneficial for students who are struggling with a particular concept or skill.

Whole class feedback

Live marking can also be used to provide whole-class verbal feedback. This can be done by taking a few minutes at the end of a lesson to go over the work completed by the class and provide feedback on the most common mistakes or areas of improvement. Perhaps even more effectively, it can address issues mid-lesson, giving students a decent chunk of time to apply new understanding.

Overall, a great way to address misconceptions or areas of confusion for the entire class, rather than just addressing them with individual students.

“OK, Year 5! Let’s live mark this example under the visualiser and work together to edit and improve the second paragraph against the S.C. …”

Live marking in primary schools

Live marking can be especially effective in primary schools. This can be done in a number of ways, such as providing oral feedback while students are completing a task or providing written feedback on a student’s work while they are still working on it.

In primary schools, live marking can be a great way to support students in developing core literacy and numeracy skills. For example, when students are learning to read, a teacher or teaching assistant will often provide feedback on their reading fluency and accuracy, which can help them improve their reading skills rapidly. Similarly, when students are working on math problems, a teacher can provide live troubleshooting on their problem-solving skills, which can help them develop their mathematical understanding more quickly.

Improving teacher well-being and workload

If the marking workload is at top of the teachers in your school’s gripe list, a refresh of expectations may be necessary. Applying some of the ideas outlined in this post may just be the key to freeing up a lot of time for teaching staff. High levels of marking workloads can be pretty entrenched in the culture of some schools. It may take a few whole-staff sessions to get the method and the reasoning across, but this will soon come. If done properly, live marking can save hours of work per week, whilst also accelerating student learning. What’s not to love?

What are the potential issues with sticking with ‘traditional marking’?

Traditional marking can be very time-consuming, as the teacher needs to read through the entire class’s work in one go. Also, the feedback may not be seen by the student until days after the lesson. As a result, some primary schools have even banned retrospective book marking and started live marking –  If teachers are spending lots of time frantically marking books after school, only for students to see it days later, how effective can it be?

In summary, we are big fans of live marking. The advantages include:

• Ensuring that student feedback is timely and specific.
• Immediate acknowledgment and feedback which improves student motivation and progress.
• Reduced marking workload for teachers!
• Provides the opportunity for schools to reflect on how effectively LOs and SCs are utilised for student progress.

Thank you for reading our post! Will you add ‘live marking’ to your teacher toolkit? Are you looking for a new role?

If you are on the lookout for your next teaching role you can view all our latest school vacancies here.

Further reading:

• Supply Teaching Guide
• How to use Colourful Semantics
• Using mini plenaries in lessons

Our specialist consultants are always happy to help you on your career journey – register and we’ll get in touch with you. In the meantime, why not try our free CPD-accredited training courses? Find out more about Prospero Learning, our training team, here.