9th August 2019 9:00
By Blue Tutors
We had an interesting chat with one of our new tutors recently about marking a student’s work. She wanted to know if we have a policy on marking work outside of lessons, and how far in advance of the next lesson should a tutor return that marked work to the student.
This is a really important issue for a school teacher. When taking in students’ books, ideally the teacher will be able to mark them and get them back to the students as quickly as possible so that the students can continue working and can see the teacher’s notes shortly after handing the work in.
Obviously from a teacher’s point of view this is a really effective way to communicate with the students, writing notes to point out the good and bad, and giving constructive criticism. However, our tutor’s question totally missed one of the amazing benefits of tuition; the ability to mark work with the student. Something a teacher can’t do.
Looking at a question a student has done or an essay they’ve written and explaining how it could be better offers the student an insight into how their work will be assessed, removing some of the mysticism around why they haven’t done as well as they’d hoped. Particularly with essay writing, a score of 67 with some notes is helpful, but does that student know how to change that to a 71, or an 85? As tutors, this is something we want our students to understand.
Our advice? By all means look at a student’s work outside of lessons and create a plan for explaining how they can improve, but then go through that plan face to face with the student.