I am a survivor of many marking policies. When I first started teaching - back when I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and still owned the pencil case I had at school - I wasn’t aware of any marking policies.

Over the years, this gave rise to an impressive selection of stationery. Sparkly pens, scented pens, pens in colours that held no meaning: at one time or another, they all adorned my desk. I wrote what I liked, how I liked.

This blessed state did not last, however, and before too long I was on a treadmill of policies. I caved in to adorning work with two stars and a wish. I pink-for-thinked and green-for-growthed with the best of them. Editing pens (green or purple; green made me snigger less), highlighters, directed time for pupil response to marking, marking for a lesson objective - I’ve been under the rule of them all.

The thing that has always bothered me, though, is not so much the way that cumbersome policies gorge themselves on my time but the lack of relevance that all this word-heavy marking has for many, many children.

Accessibility has to be the driving force

For a start, many students are just too young to take much notice of the lovingly crafted squiggles on their pages. It’s a running joke among parents that their little ones skip out of school, delighted that Miss has covered their work with kisses (if Miss is allowed to use crosses, that is).

And then there are those with SEND, or who speak English as an additional language, who couldn’t read what I’d written in their books if I paid them a million pounds. Spending hours and hours commenting on how well they have achieved this, that and the other target and what their next steps to success or “even better ifs” might be is a waste of everyone’s time and energy.

Thankfully, I have also worked in sensible schools led by people who understand that the point of marking is not to have yet another piece of evidence that I am actually doing my job when no one is looking but is rather that it may benefit the child. Both in terms of their learning and in developing the dialogue between teacher and student. This, in turn, informs the all-important relationship between them (which also benefits learning).

I am all for marking. But, like everything else we do in an inclusive classroom, making your marking accessible has to be the driving force behind any policy. It isn’t teacher workload (after all, the traditional sequence of plan-teach-mark is kind of what we do). It isn’t for evidence, available for senior leaders and inspectors, should they come to call. It’s for the children - all of them, young, old, SEND, near and far from exams - because if we don’t do it in a way that benefits them, we aren’t doing our jobs properly.

Nancy Gedge is a consultant teacher for the Driver Youth Trust, which works with schools and teachers on SEND. She is the Tes SEND specialist and author of Inclusion for Primary School Teachers