Heavy work loads, long days and the weekend in sight, probably (okay, definitely) means you’re not excited about that stack of marking you have to do.
Fear not, I’ve come up with 5 quick suggestions to make the time you spend on marking more worthwhile and effective.
Share your top marking tips and ideas with your fellow teachers in the comments below.
Spend less time searching
Having to flick through numerous pages of messy notes, doodles and work from weeks ago that should have been completed is not only annoying, but also time consuming.
Get pupils to write notes and draft essays in the back of work books or on separate pieces of paper. This ensures that the only work in the front of their books is relevant and needs marking. This makes it easier to see where you last marked and what needs looking at next.
Doing things this way also means that if work is poor, you can look at all of the pupils notes and see how effective their note taking skills are.
Leave it all open
Another tip to save you flicking through endless work books: get pupils to hand in their books open at the page you need to mark. You can stack them open and leave them that way until you get around to marking them.
Marking club
This is one for small groups of teachers who all get along well and have a good enough dynamic to spur each other along.
Invite colleagues into your class and set up your marking essentials as usual (stickers, pens, sticky notes). You can discuss a rota for who handles the tea and cakes and make a great playlist if everyone works well with background music.
Get into the routine of marking for 30 minutes and then having a 10 minute break followed by another 20 minutes of marking.
Your ten minute break should consist of doing something fun together: chatting about the latest TV news, playing a game of cards and playing catch are all options.
As you work through that 30 minutes, marking away, you’ll notice your colleagues progress and it’ll encourage you to continue at a steady pace. You’ll also have a chance to confer with other teachers if you stumble across something that raises questions. 
Post it
Sometimes, it seems like you don’t get a chance to give individual children the time and attention they need. One short, positive note of encouragement or praise once a week can be a great way to deal with this.
Writing one note a week to each pupil in your class might sound like a big task and time consuming. However writing one small note a week to pupils means you’re enforcing an individual teacher/pupil bond.
You can do this in any way you like:
* One option is a display board in your classroom with one envelope per pupil pinned to it. You can get them to write their names on and decorate the front of their envelope. Throughout the week you can write 5 or so notes per day and slip them into the relevant envelopes when children have left for the day. At the end of the week, say Friday afternoon, you can invite pupils to empty their envelopes and read the notes from you.
* You could take this one step further and invite pupils to write positive notes to each other with one rule in place: they can’t write anything that could upset anyone. This would need moderation from you but could encourage some great pupil interactions.
Another option is to send less frequent notes to pupils, say once a month. Using a product such as our praise postcards means pupils have something they can keep and take home to show their parents.
Treats
Not for your pupils but for you! Once you’re done with your marking make sure you treat yourself.
This could be eating or drinking one of your favourite treats or catching up on the TV show you’re hooked on- by this point you’ve earned it!
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