It’s really good that, at last, there are voices of officialdom stating that marking does not have to include extensive written statements on every single piece of a pupil’s work, that pupils should respond to their teachers’ comments in writing, or how often marking should be done.
Assessment in general, and marking in particular, should be fit for purpose — so the first thing to do is agree on what the purpose is. The point of marking, surely, is to ascertain whether a pupil has understood something, with a view to either providing her with something more challenging, or helping her to get over the difficulties she is having.
Once the purpose is agreed, then any marking practices should be evaluated in the light of that. For example, so-called “deep marking”, which is often to taken to mean a process whereby the teacher writes a comment, and the pupil responds in writing, which the teacher must then read (and presumably respond to in some way, if only to indicate that the pupil’s response has been read), is extremely time-consuming. For some pupils, it would be very onerous, if their reading and writing skills aren’t very good. So you have to ask yourself: does the end justify the means?
Put simply: if it’s quicker to say to a pupil, orally: “Try doing X next time; go on, have a go at it now” than to write a paragraph saying the same thing and then have the pupil respond, then surely it is better to just give the oral comment.
In a different context, writers and would-be writers often engage in lots of activities around writing, but then have too little time for the writing itself. I’m often guilty of this myself, and have to pull myself up from time to time. For example, rather than finish
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