Imagine asking every teacher in your department to go away and create their own ruler. Once they have done that, you compare the rulers, to check that the lines match up.

When we ask teachers to take part in department moderation, we are asking them to do something similar - and this analogy illustrates why it can be such a tricky process.

Moderation is about checking that judgements of students’ work are comparable across your department. It means reaching a consensus on what it looks like when a student is demonstrating a skill “consistently” rather than “considerably”, and that isn’t always straightforward.

This year, the process is likely to be particularly difficult because of the pressure to produce teacher-assessed grades for exam classes.

Departments may also face similar challenges in 2022 and 2023, as there have been suggestions that exams in those years may be subject to disruption, too.

Guidance for moderation in schools

So, what can heads of departments do to make moderation run as smoothly as possible? We spoke to some experienced moderating leaders to find out how they manage the process.

1. Always standardise first

Laura Webb is head of English at Churchdown School Academy in Gloucestershire, and an experienced examiner. She says the first step is to go through a standardisation process with your team. This is when staff together discuss the mark scheme and what meeting the criteria would look like, before going away to independently mark students’ work.

“What needs to happen is a calibration process to bring all teachers in line with each other,” says Webb. “For me, without standardising pre-marking, you are more likely to encounter serious issues at moderation.”

Matthew Nichols, a head of drama, agrees that this step is crucial. He has experience of moderation both within his own department and in his role as exam board moderator.

“Good moderation should always start with a discussion of the mark scheme,” he says. “[This is] so that everyone who is using it understands its command words and how the scheme might be purposefully applied.”

2. Downplay subjectivity

Some teachers may have concerns that the moderation of marking may be undermined by personal tastes, particularly with arts subjects. Nicholas says that it is important to address these concerns explicitly.

“I must have moderated over a thousand pieces of performance work over the past 15 years and can remember excellent performances of work where I didn’t like or enjoy the subject matter, style or genre,” he says.

Webb agrees. “In a discipline like English, the marking is often perceived as subjective. The truth is that it isn’t - I think we have perpetuated this myth alongside the myth that there are ‘no wrong answers’ in English. That’s not right - there are a lot of wrong answers.”

3. Remove the ‘expert marker’ from the process

Another problem that a head of department may encounter is that some teachers may feel the moderation process is a way of “policing” them, and so they may not fully buy into it, warns Webb. This can happen if you use a model where one moderator approves the marking of everyone else.

“I used to see moderation as something that a special, experienced teacher would do to ‘check on’ the rest of us,” says Webb. “[I thought it was] a process that was designed to catch people out for their marking. This is dangerous, as it creates barriers between teachers of different experience, and also never gets everyone to understand how a standard should be applied across a whole cohort.”

Laura May Rowlands, a head of English in Hampshire, suggests that one way to avoid this is to complete standardisation firstly in pairs, and then as a group.

“I pair teachers up according to experience; for example, an NQT with their mentor as a supportive measure. I ensure department time is given for this,” she says. “We start by standardising using marked scripts from the board in order to establish the standard together, and I make these scripts available to all so they can check back to them as they mark.”

4. Expose staff to a range of ability

For moderation to work, leaders need to ensure that teachers are exposed to a variety of scripts. Teachers need to see the full range of ability in order to understand where the far ends of the mark scheme should be applied, explains Webb.

“When teachers assess one class, they expect students to go from 0-30 marks, but, especially when students are in sets, this isn’t the case - sometimes a class might remain within the same one or two bands,” she says.

Adam Boxer, head of science at a school in North London, agrees, adding that, ideally, this exposure to work from a range of abilities should be happening all year round, to get staff used to where mark boundaries lie.

“Open channels of communication are vital [for moderation],” he says. “Departments [should be in] the habit of regularly taking pictures of students’ work and putting it in an email or instant messaging channel and asking how other members of the department would score it.”

5. Mark blind

Examiners don’t know whose work they are marking for a good reason: it helps to reduce bias. Internally, when staff may know most students in a year by name, it is harder to mimic that anonymity - but steps should be taken to allow teachers to mark “blind” as far as possible.

“I think last year’s grading showed that, on average, teachers tend to inflate student scores subconsciously,” says Boxer. “This is entirely normal, understandable and predictable. But it does mean that the closer we get to objectivity, the better, so things like blind marking (not marking exams from students you know) and blind writing of exams (not writing exams for classes you teach) will help.”

Nichols says that this can be a real challenge in practical assessment, so leaders should consider if external support is needed for teachers of subjects like drama.

“It’s always a challenge to mark your own work; you’ve seen the pupils grow and progress through the rehearsal process and it can be tempting to reward effort and tenacity,” he says. “Senior managers working in settings with a sole teacher in charge of an arts subject should be proactive in looking for suitable support or local partnering opportunities to encourage a degree of routine and an agreed process when it comes to moderating arts work.”

The obvious benefit of nailing the moderation process is that you will have more accurate grades. But actually, the benefits go further than that, says Webb.

“Moderation allows for a discussion of teacher knowledge and pedagogy. Staff will say: ‘This is great layered analysis - how do you get them to do that?’

“The real benefit of moderation is these organic conversations, which happen when we look at what another teacher’s students produce.”

Grainne Hallahan is Tes recruitment editor and senior content writer at Tes

This article originally appeared in the 28 May 2021 issue under the headline “Everything in moderation: all you need to know”