Teachers’ planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time is self-directed time in which teachers have the opportunity to undertake tasks including assessing the work of the pupils for whom they are responsible. The NASUWT is clear that marking therefore represents an entirely appropriate use of PPA time.

In this article, we look if there are any set expectations for the marking of work and what you can do to raise a concern if it is having a detrimental impact on your work/life balance. What are marking expectations for teachers? In this version, the grading scale is percentage-based (A>=90%, B>=80%, etc.), but in the Gradebook worksheet you enter the number of points earned on each assignment or exam. This system is often used college courses such as science, math, and engineering.

Engage children with digital learning

The time taken to mark does not always correlate with successful pupil outcomes and leads to wasted teacher time. Examples of disproportionate marking practice include: extensive comments which children in an early years’ class are unable to read, or a written dialogue instead of a conversation. If teachers are spending more time on marking than the children are on a piece of work then the proportion is wrong and should be changed.’ (Paragraph 23)

an approximate guide to the reasonableness of marking burdens is the extent to which teachers are able to complete the greater part of their marking during their planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) time. What if the exams have different weights, how do you know which one has the largest negative effect on the grade? Consider the following scenario in which the overall exam score is calculated as the Total Points Earned divided by the Total Points Possible:Example 1: Relative Weighting - If you wanted an exam to be equivalent to 5 homework assignments, in the Gradebook worksheet you could set the weighting factors on the homework to 1 and the weighting factor for the exam to 5. Or, using the point system, the exam would be worth 5 times as many points as a homework assignment. Suitable for any subject area regardless of how or what you assess. Show or hide up to five different assessment objective columns for each assessment.