Sats Exam Marking Leaves Its Scars
Several months before the scheduled marking was to take place, I was contacted by ETS and given access to an online platform through a password that was issued to me. After a few weeks, my friend, who also happened to be my team leader during previous marking experiences, requested me to take up a team leader position as many of the previous leaders had dropped out of the marking process. I reached out to ETS and expressed my willingness to be a team leader. However, I faced a series of problems as my password stopped working, and I couldn’t access any information on the platform. Since I was unable to access anything, I was under the impression that ETS did not want me as an examiner and accepted alternative employment options.
Just four days before the standardisation meetings, I received a call from a previous team leader, informing me that I was in his team. Since I hadn’t prepared, I wasn’t sure about becoming an examiner. The usual examination process entails the receipt of papers, responding to the questions, looking through the mark scheme and then marking live scripts while recording the marks separately on paper or pencil until standardisation. However, the courier from UPS could not deliver these papers because the schools had been instructed not to give copies of the mark schemes or papers.
The standardisation meeting had a detailed schedule, and while it went reasonably well, I had limited opportunities to ask questions. I tried repeatedly to complete the online standardisation registration, but it was difficult, and my password failed to work. However, with the encouragement of my team leader, I successfully completed the registration. I finally received the papers two weeks after the standardisation meeting, which meant that there was little time left to mark them.
As examiners, we were required to mark the papers through inputting the marks on paper before entering them on a computer. This process was time-consuming, especially considering that each candidate had to do two papers with 30 entries per paper and mental tests of 30 responses. As I was marking 80 candidates, I needed 14 weeks between standardisation and the marking deadline, but it was cut short. This left me feeling overworked and underpaid.
With so many problems, some markers gave up entirely, and the process left me feeling quite stressed. I couldn’t even get through to the telephone helpline as there were too many callers. Even when I did get through, the calls were costly, and I had a limited budget for communication. Despite the many issues, I finally finished marking ahead of schedule.
ETS offered a £100 bonus to those who completed the marking on time, and the amount for each candidate was raised from 25p to 50p, but the delivery of completed papers was a problem due to UPS saying they were too busy. The whole process left me feeling sympathetic towards the youngsters and schools as it was they who had to suffer. ETS may have succeeded in exploiting markers for data entry, but the long-term consequences will be severe, with many unwilling to participate in future mark schemes.
