Guides

Marking and feedback guides for teachers

Practical, plain-English guides for secondary teachers on marking extended writing well and faster, and on using AI marking without handing over your judgement.

AI marking

• AI essay marking for teachers: how it works

  What it can and cannot do, and what to check before you let any tool near a class set.

• AI marking tools for UK teachers compared

  How the main tools differ, and the questions that actually separate them.

• Can you use ChatGPT to mark essays?

  Five ways it goes wrong across a class set, the data protection question, and a safer routine.

• Is AI marking allowed in UK schools?

  What the Department for Education has said, and what a head of department will ask.

• How accurate is AI marking, and how would you know?

  Accuracy against what, and a twenty-minute test on your own scripts.

Marking by qualification

• Marking GCSE essays against your exam board scheme

  Levels of response, best fit, and the mistakes that cost a class set half a grade.

• Marking A-level essays

  What separates the levels, the errors that skew a set, and marking Year 12 work and mocks.

• Marking European Baccalaureate work

  The 0–10 scale, second-language writing, and consistency across a set.

Mark schemes and feedback

• How to write a mark scheme that marks consistently

  Levels, descriptors you could point to, indicative content and anchor scripts.

• How to mark a class set of essays faster

  Cutting the time without cutting the standard.

• Whole-class feedback: a practical guide

  The notes sheet, the one-page handout, and the lesson that follows.

• Feedback students act on

  Why most written feedback is never used, and how redrafting and resubmission fix it.

For schools

• Data processing agreement

  Controller and processor roles, sub-processors, where student work is stored.