Tick box requirement for assessment to increase teacher workload, Tes reports

Tes has reported that the new requirement to assess Year 6 pupils’ writing using a tick-box approach could dramatically increase teachers workload.

The news comes after the Department for Education (DfE) published new guidelines proposing that teachers check six different pieces of work for every pupil against 33 statements, resulting in a possible 198 new boxes to check for each child.

Previously, teachers used a holistic approach to mark what level a child was working at. However, head teachers fear the new system could mean an extra two days of work for each Year 6 teacher.

Michael Tidd, deputy head teacher of Edgewood Primary School in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, said: “Before we didn’t tick boxes. Teacher assessment was part of the job and so it didn’t really need any time because we were doing it anyway. Now we have to collect evidence and it will add hours of work perhaps 30 minutes per child, which all adds up across a class of 30.”

A spokesperson for the Standards and Testing Agency, part of the DfE, said: “Reducing unnecessary teacher workload is a key priority for this government. The exemplification materials are intended as a tool for schools to use when assessing a pupil’s standard.

"Within them there are 18 'pupil can' statements that teachers must be able to demonstrate that a pupil meets in order to award the 'working at the expected' standard in writing at Key Stage 2.”