Marking is vital for the successful delivery of national curriculum assessments and is a key cornerstone for both the education system and the teaching profession. Being a marker can help your teaching career. If you are currently teaching, it will give you an insight into educational assessment that will help you prepare your own pupils for tests and examinations. It’s also a great way to stay in touch with what’s happening in the education sector if you are taking a career break from teaching.

 

Extra income

One of the reasons teaching professionals become markers is because of the extra income.

 

If you are prepared to commit to delivering the required quality and consistency and can put aside the time, you can continue your role as a full time teacher and mark in the evenings and weekends. But be prepared, marking can be time consuming and requires a good attention to detail and the capacity to deliver on your commitments. Depending on your level and key stage experience, you may be expected to attend some initial meetings on benchmarking, standardisation and level setting but these commitments are all reflected in your fee. 

 
Professional development

Being a marker will improve your skills in the classroom. It can provide you with an unrivalled insight into what markers look for from pupils helping to improve your own effectiveness as a teacher. As a professional marker, you will have access to information relating specifically to your subject specialism and will have access to what the pupils need to demonstrate in order to earn marks. You can then use that information in your school to the benefit of your own pupils. Another benefit is increased awareness of important issues such as the use of effective language, how a mark scheme is developed and applied and the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable answers.

 

Networking opportunities

Being a marker means being part of a group of education professionals that can offer you support throughout the course of your career. Having access to a wider network of contacts could also lead to more career opportunities and provide you with other routes to get involved in training and develop your assessment expertise.

 

Interested in becoming a marker?

The recruitment of markers for the 2008 national curriculum tests has now finished, but we will begin recruiting again in September 2008, for the 2009 tests cycle.