Markers to be marked

At last - this is something that has been needed for a long time, especially after the poor Literacy marking last year. Taken from the Guardian:

"People marking the national tests pupils sit at age 11 and 14 will be required to pass exams themselves to do so, under new plans to improve the quality of marking announced by the government's exams watchdog today.

The moves are intended to allay growing fears over marking standards. Last month, the Guardian revealed that schools had requested re-marks for more than 100,000 key stage 3 English test papers for 14-year-old pupils over the past three years.

In 2007, schools asked for a second opinion on the marks for 25,549 English test papers.

This year, markers will have to take an online "standardisation exercise" to make sure that they put into practice what they have been taught during their training. Only those markers who pass the exam will be allocated test scripts to mark.

The process of marking will also be monitored more carefully. Previously, the standard of a marker's work was checked twice during the marking period, in 2008 this will be increased to up to five marking checks."