A private school in London has abolished grades at key stage 3 to “remove unnecessary levels of stress” and improve pupils’ mental health and wellbeing.

Putney High School decided to scrap grades for Years 7, 8 and 9 after carrying out research that suggested students’ learning improved when teachers used comment-only marking.

The idea was the brainchild of Antony Barton, the school’s head of English. He told Tes: “When a piece of work is handed back, the students’ attention tends to gravitate immediately towards the grade or the letter at the top of the page, and you often hear students saying, ‘What did you get?’

“So I thought, ‘Well, let’s just see what would happen if we removed that focus on the students’ positional value and started to focus them much more on the comments themselves.’”

Under a five-month randomised control trial, a Year 7 English class, a Year 8 French class and a Year 9 geography class all introduced comment-only marking.

According to the research report, all three “treatment” classes performed at least as well as the rest of the year group when they were assessed.

The French treatment class was the best-performing class in the subject in the end-of-year exams, “allaying fears that a lack of marks might reduce achievement”, the report states.

Mental health and wellbeing

But Suzie Longstaff, Putney High’s headmistress, told Tes that the school’s decision to abolish grading at KS3 was settled by the impact on students’ mental health and wellbeing.

“Mental health and pupil wellbeing have to be central to everything we do,” she said. “We want to remove unnecessary levels of stress for children, teachers and parents.”

Under the previous grading system, attainment was measured with a numerical grade, where 1 was the best.

“If you get below a 1 then the students start asking questions,” she said. “And 2 is supposed to be good. If you go to a 3 they get really upset. They were really worried about the number rather than what it meant.”

Comment-only marking meant the students were “less obsessed with grading and test outcomes”.

“They’ve got enough years after [KS3], haven’t they, to be worrying about their grades?” Ms Longstaff added.

Mr Barton said the change gave greater confidence to students who had previously been receiving lower grades, by taking away the bragging rights of those at the top of the class.

“Some students liked being able to latch on to a number, particularly those students that have consistently been getting the top grades,” he said. “You’re removing the ability to brag about your work to another student.”

He said most students “recognised after a while that their work was improving”, and that teachers also noticed a change in their behaviour.

“In the summer exams, the French teacher told me that when he gave his papers back there was absolute silence with the students focusing on the comments made,” Mr Barton said.

“They were actually asking for pieces of paper on which they could make notes about how they could improve in the future, whereas in other classes you have students whipping out calculators trying to work out their percentage.”

‘Keeping GCSE pressure at bay’

With Ofsted having raised concerns about KS4 encroaching on KS3, Mr Barton said comment-only marking was a way of keeping the pressures of GCSEs at bay.

“They’re absolutely in the position they need to be for the GCSEs when, whether we like it or not, they will be assessed. There will be alphanumerical grades attached to them at the end of it all.

“But there isn’t this GCSE centric-grading going on - they obviously don’t need to worry about that for the time being. It’s much more important to develop those skills in those early years, and to keep that passion alive.”

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