At Dixons Trinity Chapeltown, an all-through academy in Leeds, we pride ourselves on our messy marking. This doesn’t mean that we scribble all over the children’s books, or that our teachers’ handwriting is messy. Instead, it means that our teachers spend time on feedback, but not marking.
Many schools are now starting to recognise the value of shifting their priorities in this way: cutting down on marking can reduce teacher workload and free staff up to focus their attention on other aspects of planning and preparation that have a greater impact on learning.
There are many ways to cut marking, but it’s not always clear what the best option for your school might be.
We believe “messy marking” is a great choice. We’ve been using this approach since our school opened in 2017, and we know it’s successful. When Ofsted inspected us in 2021, they said: “[A]pproaches such as ‘messy marking’ help teachers to very accurately pinpoint pupils’ learning. They use this information to precisely plan what they need to teach next.”
How it works in practice
So what’s messy about it? Here’s how it works.
Teachers are provided with a markbook split into two sections to separate in-class and post-practice messy marking. During lessons, teachers will monitor students’ work, evaluate whether or not they achieve excellence, and identify any errors.
The teacher will then “messy mark”: they will jot down the names of students who have been successful or otherwise against the learning goals, as well as noting any common errors and key knowledge that’s been evidenced or needs developing. These notes don’t need to be long or complicated; they are short and done in a few seconds.
Post-practice messy marking looks much the same: teachers will look through students’ work in order to identify common successes and the next steps needed. They then will make notes in their own markbooks, rather than in individual children’s books, but if they do want to provide written comments then they can.
Knowing what excellence looks like and which misconceptions are most likely to occur is at the centre of this approach. To support staff in this process, the expert authors of our schemes of work clearly identify what should be “hunted” for in student work.
As well as massively reducing the workload that comes with traditional marking, messy marking enables teachers to collect data on student work regularly - in some cases, it’s even minute by minute. What they do with that data is crucial; whether it’s been collected in-class or post-practice, the teacher responds to it in order to close gaps, deal with misconceptions and ultimately push learning forwards.
How they do this can take many forms: further instruction, responsive additional practice, drilling on mini whiteboards or breakout teaching.
In French, for example, the teacher may identify that students are erroneously adding an “e” instead of an “s” to an adjective that should be plural, not feminine, through messy marking. They would then use this analysis to plug gaps and ask focused questions where they are most impactful. In this example, the teacher would project the mistake using the visualiser and ask two different questions. To a student who has demonstrated clear understanding, they would ask what the mistake is and why it was made. Then, to the students who have struggled, they would ask what they need to do to rectify their work, thus closing the gap.
The benefits of messy marking
For us, the benefits of messy marking are multifaceted. It shifts the time and focus of marking away from the process of writing comments in every student’s book to thinking about impactful next steps in teaching to move learning forwards.
Anecdotally, I can say that our students know and remember more, and use that knowledge more accurately, because our teachers are able to spend more of their time and cognitive load planning and delivering highly-tailored lessons.
Messy marking also supports a culture in our classrooms where ownership of improving, editing and refining work is the norm for all students, and therefore increases their understanding of what “better” looks like and how to achieve it.
Jon Gilbert is the all-through vice-principal for instruction and staff development at Dixons Trinity Chapeltown, Leeds. Adam Clough and Laura Jay work alongside him as associate assistant vice-principal and head of french and primary assistant vice-principal for instruction, respectively
