Introduction At Hawkhurst Church of England Primary School, we recognise that timely, accurate and age-appropriate feedback is a fundamental element of teaching and learning and is therefore essential in supporting children to achieve and be successful learners. We are also mindful of the impact of extensive marking on teacher workload and wellbeing, and the limited evidence of its efficacy in helping children learn. Our feedback policy, therefore, reflects what we know about how children learn best and how this can be best managed by staff in the classroom environment.   Rationale and Aims   The purpose of feedback is to support a child’s progress and at Hawkhurst CEP School we want our pupils to take responsibility for their own work, develop deep thinking and reflective attitudes to their learning and internalise and generalise the skills taught in class. Extensive written marking, provided after the lesson, has limited impact on pupil progress, is time-consuming for teachers and detracts from pupil responsibility to correct and improve their own work.   At Hawkhurst CEP School we aim to make the best use of lesson time during the school day to make accurate formative assessments, give prompt feedback to address mistakes and misconceptions and use the information gathered to support children in building independence and making progress.   How feedback takes place in Hawkhurst CEP School   Feedback will look different across the seven years of primary education to account for teachers giving feedback in the most appropriate way for the age of the children they teach. Teacher feedback will be evidenced using stamps or pink pen, and green can be used to show action points.   In the Early Years Foundation Stage   For our youngest children, the vast majority of feedback is immediate and verbal. These children will need additional support as they begin their learning journey in primary school and teachers will need to use their professional judgement and expertise in how best to support these children to make progress. As children approach the end of the EYFS it will be important for teachers familiarise their pupils with more structured feedback approaches to prepare them for the transition to Key Stage 1. In Key Stage 1   In Year 1 and 2 teachers will be developing children’s independence and ability to take responsibility for the accuracy of their work. This will, particularly in Year 1, continue to be an emerging skill and so feedback will continue to predominantly be immediate, verbal feedback. Teachers will, however, be alerting children to common mistakes in their work and supporting pupils to make corrections.   In Year 2 children will be increasingly independent and will be expected to make regular use of self- and peer-marking opportunities and proof-reading and editing time to identify errors promptly and understand how to work more accurately.   In Key Stage 2   In Key Stage 2 children will be expected to be increasingly independent and responsible for correcting their work. They will be regularly provided with three different methods of feedback to support them in doing so.   Type of feedback What it looks like Evidence for observers Immediate Takes place within the lesson, with a group or whole class Teacher and TA gathering assessments from observations of children’s learning Given verbally to pupils for immediate action Praise May involve use of the teacher or TA to support and further challenge May re-direct the focus of teaching or the task Lesson observations Learning walk Indicated with stamp in books when feedback given 1:1 VF will indicate verbal feedback given Responsive (catch-up) Takes place soon after the lesson or activity (ideally on the same day) either individually or in small groups Re-addresses knowledge from the lesson or addresses missing prior knowledge Often verbal with time to rehearse knowledge immediately Will usually be given by a teaching assistant with guidance from a teacher Any interventions for catch-up are recorded in their exercise books to show progress over time Learning walks Catch-up observations Feedback sheets Book scrutiny Summary (feed-forward) Involves reading/looking at the work of all pupils at the end of a lesson or unit Identifies and addresses key strengths and misconceptions for the whole class or sub-groups Takes place during the following lesson Involves allocating time for editing based on the feedback given or rehearsal of the knowledge – children edit in purple pen May involve some peer support or support from the teacher or teaching assistant May be delivered by the teacher or teaching assistant Lesson observations Learning walks Book scrutiny Feedback sheets

What feedback looks like in English

In English, most writing lessons will include or be followed up with editing time. During this time, whole class feedback will be delivered showing strengths and areas for development and will include teaching on how to identify and improve on these.

Teachers will have looked at pupils’ work during or soon after the previous English lesson and identified where the class, or a sub-group, have excelled or made mistakes. These will be linked to technical accuracy and the content of the writing.

Editing time will be divided into two key sections:

Proof reading: checking and changing punctuation, checking and changing spellings, correcting letter formation and handwriting, changing grammatical errors e.g. tense and verb agreement, sentence structure etc.

During proof reading sessions, the teacher will share extracts of pupils’ work using a visualiser or interactive whiteboard. They will share what a high-quality, accurate piece of work looks like, focussed on a specific area, and instruct children to check their own work and make changes in response to the good example. Following this, the teacher will share examples which exemplify a misconception or common mistake. The teacher will then use this time to re-teach knowledge. The teacher will also have selected key spelling mistakes and spend time pointing out these spelling errors and explaining the correct spelling and how to remember this in future. Children will then be given a short period of time to proof read their work. They will check for similar errors and correct them. Children may be encouraged sit in mixed ability pairs or groups to support each other in the identification and correction of mistakes. Corrections will be done in purple pen.

Editing: improving the composition (and effect on the reader) by improving vocabulary choices, adding speech, description or action for further clarity, experimenting with word order and sentence structure.

During editing sessions, the teacher will show a number of pieces which exemplify the composition focus e.g. a well-developed character description. The teacher will explain why this piece is particularly successful. The teacher will then share less well-written examples (anonymous or fictional) and the children will suggest together how it might be improved. Children will then in pairs or small groups share their work and suggest improvements, alterations and refinements. The children will rewrite short sections of their work on ‘editing flaps’ to show progress.

Some children may need more support than this in order to be successful in improving their own work as they learn to be more independent learners. Teachers will need to ‘teach to the top’ and add support and scaffolds where needed. Some children will need prompts to enable them to focus when looking for mistakes. In Key Stage 1, teachers will have stamps to indicate where a child needs to check their use of full stops, capital letters and finger spaces. These may also be used in Key Stage 2 to support children with SEN.

In Key Stage 2 writing prompts and editing station descriptors may be used to support children in looking for certain mistakes until these skills are secure for the majority of the class.

Commonly misspelt words will be retaught during whole class feedback but there may be times where individual pupils need spelling mistakes identified. These will be indicated to the pupil with the use of a wiggly line under the misspelt word. In Key Stage 1 a wiggly line will also be used to identify an incorrectly formed letter. To ensure that feedback is appropriate and timely the teacher should use their discretion and professional judgement in deciding how many key spelling errors are identified; too many may prevent the feedback from being as meaningful and effective.

Where mistakes or misconceptions are deeply entrenched, or children are very young or lack confidence, teachers may need to do some direct work modelling how to overcome these e.g. teaching accurate apostrophe use. For these children, it may be appropriate to set up an editing challenge based on a fictional piece of work with only one, key, recurrent error. An adult might then support the group in identifying what the error is. This may be done instead of editing their own work or as a prelude to it, depending on their needs. What the teacher must not do is use a marking code to identify the error for the child as this takes away the opportunity and responsibility from the pupil to think deeply about how to improve.

What feedback looks like in mathematics

In daily mathematics lessons, teachers should have the answers to problems available and after doing a few calculations (4 or 5), children should be given the opportunity to mark and check their answers. If something has been misunderstood, teachers can then address this immediately in the lesson. Where work is well differentiated, this will also support less confident children in rapidly gaining confidence in developing the new skill or knowledge. Teachers might also ask children to work in a group, compare answers and try and find out which answers are right and where they might have gone wrong.

Where children have corrected their work, it should be in purple pen, this will allow the teacher to see what mistakes they are making.

Revisiting and checking their own work gives children opportunities to over-learn and commit learning more securely to long-term retention.

Teachers may also use the visualiser or interactive whiteboard to model ways of checking and ask children to do the same, proof reading their calculations. Giving children work to mark from fictitious children, which includes common misconceptions, is a good way of helping to develop this.

Where possible, teachers should provide immediate feedback on children’s work within the mathematics lesson to provide children with the best opportunities to improve. However, where this is not possible children should be given opportunities to spend time with the teacher or teaching assistant in small groups to receive feedback on their work.

In Key Stage 1 and the EYFS, whilst these routines and skills will be taught, it may be necessary for teachers and teaching assistants to check through calculations for the children.

Where number formation is developing, incorrect number formation will be identified using a wiggly line under the number.

What feedback looks like in other subjects

Work is expected to be of the same high, written standard as in English. Spelling and grammatical errors may be highlighted; however, the focus of any feedback should be knowledge or skill based depending on the subject.

Date to be reviewed: September 2023