Closing the gaps and creating GRIT – smarter feedback and a culture of redrafting

Formative marking is the buzz term of the decade but what does it actually look like in good practice? It’s taken me a long process of refinement to finally reach a point where I feel sure that my marking is truly formative and enables students to make the most progress in their learning. In the highly discursive subjects of English and Sociology, this truly matters.

I’ve come a long way from comments such as ‘You need to write in more detail’ and ‘Improve your spellings’ to where my marking is today. My marking of any extended piece of writing or essay centres on three rules:

Hardwiring learning and effort = success

At Bristol Brunel Academy we try to lead by challenging preconceived notions that people are born talented or lucky.  In Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code: Greatness isn’t born it’s Grown he argues that talent is grown through purposeful practice…deep practice.  Below I give a specific example of how this can be seen in students’ learning.