Our Monday Magic Moment this week had a very celebratory feel. Led by Advanced Lead Teacher and SIxth Form Leader Mr Harris, it was a chance to showcase all the exceptional work completed by colleagues across the school during the academic year and capture some best practice in the important area of marking and feedback.

 As a school we have facilitated three Marking and Feedback Fortnights throughout the year and used these opportunities to trial out different strategies to provide feedback in a variety of different ways; some strategies have focussed on ensuring stretch and challenge and support for More Able students, other strategies have been designed to provide more adaptive techniques to aid inclusive practice in classrooms.

Each faculty has then produced a superb best practice handbook – produced as a hard copy and also online, both versions will be an excellent resource to all staff, whether established or new to the school. At Bushey Meads School our marking and feedback practice is exemplary and really assists students to make those all-important next steps in their learning.

As parents and carers you can also play your part in ensuring your children maximise their progress at the school.

Do regularly look at your children’s books and check that:

• all assessment stickers have been completed
• all ‘next steps’ indicated on the assessment stickers have been actioned
• all ‘SP’ spelling comments have been responded to by writing out the correct spelling three times
• all key questions and next step instructions posed by the teacher in Green Pen have been responded to in purple pen
• all worksheet and assessment summary sheets have been carefully stuck into the books so that they can be easily referred to and used to revise from before any upcoming exams next year
• all titles have been underlined using a ruler
• all diagrams carefully labelled and pictures/diagrams coloured in carefully