Instead, the moderation process happened during the marking itself. Papers were generated via the online marking platform and randomly – every 20th paper or so – a test-case paper already marked by senior examiners would appear. Once that paper was marked, we’d get a notification telling us if we were in “tolerance” (that is, in line with what the senior examiners had awarded the paper).
Here’s why 12 marks of the moderated mark. Considering how tight the grade boundaries were this year, an examiner could have marked a paper at an entire grade or more above, or below, and still be allowed to continue marking. Great for the students whose papers were being marked by over-generous markers, but what about the other end of the spectrum?
The exam board was so desperate for markers, I worry about those with less experience
If a paper was out of tolerance your ability to mark would be “paused” on the online marking system – and rightly so. But as long as you accepted feedback from your team leader, you would be allowed to keep marking. Despite being an experienced head of English, my marking was paused three times over the course of the process (I was marking 300 scripts).
I’m speaking out because I know that I’m not alone in my concerns. I spoke to a number of other exam markers – heads of English, assistant principals, English consultants and a vice principal – who all had similar experiences; they were paused from marking a few times and were all simply given formative feedback and then un-paused without any real continual monitoring of the accuracy of their work, as far as we were aware.
