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CUSTOMER STORIES

INMAT

INMAT is a Multi Academy Trust based in Northamptonshire, made up of 11 primary schools ranging from single to three-form entry.

CEO Helen Williams and School Improvement Lead Simon Blight had just begun considering how AI might save time in assessments when they attended PiXL’s MAT Connect conference and met the team at stylus, who were preparing to launch a discovery project focused on Key Stage 2 Writing.

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INMAT
Northamptonshire
Location
Key Stage 2
Phase
120 involved in trial
Number of Students
Simon Blight
Trust Lead
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Why year 6 writing?

Marking a portfolio of writing tasks for every year 6 pupil is a time-consuming task for teachers — but the large volume of individual judgements it demands makes it highly appropriate for AI to tackle. Year 6 teachers across England are unanimous in identifying the marking of writing as the biggest pain point in their roles. With a lengthy, often ambiguous, assessment rubric and high levels of subjectivity, preparing writing portfolios adds hours of workload each week. Both INMAT and stylus saw the potential for AI in removing this workload — as well as creating additional insight for teachers, increasing consistency, and making moderation easier.

Launching the marking service

The key aim of the project was to demonstrate that AI could offer detailed insight for teachers on their class’s writing, making it clear what each student needed to improve and what they should teach next — all while removing workload. 


Following a launch event with the writing leads, each school provided a small sample of student work with which to begin ‘training’ the stylus AI marking service. Using a combination of AI and expert teacher-moderators, all work was double-marked against a granular writing rubric covering both Grammar and Punctuation, and Composition. 


Assessing writing involves a huge number of individual judgements, so teachers need to know which to prioritise — each teacher gained access to a teacher panel, with Red / Amber / Green colour coding used to indicate the highest-priority areas for intervention. Assessment points are mapped against the Teacher Assessment Framework for year 6, but can also be sorted by Strand — enabling teachers to focus on thematic teaching of specific punctuation rules, for instance. 


Year 6 students are required to complete a portfolio of work over the course of the year, which teachers in turn use to evidence whether they are Working Towards expected standard, at Expected Standard, or demonstrating Greater Depth. As well as showing clearly which criteria at each level had been evidenced in individual pieces, the teacher panel also shows cumulative performance over several pieces of work. The Scan Viewer means teachers can check marks against the student’s original piece of work. Even better, it can support moderation conversations by enabling teachers to find quickly where specific skills are evidenced in a portfolio of work, without having to search through piles of exercise books.

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Results

Almost every school in INMAT is now able to access student feedback through the teacher tool, with Infant schools soon able to join the project as year 2 assessment points are introduced. One school has even used the tool to show governors the progress pupils are making, as well as highlight the demand on teachers of marking writing.

School Improvement Lead Simon Blight is clear about the value such a marking service can offer schools:

“The teacher is getting back time that they lost through having to do the marking process in the first place, so you’re giving them more time to actually work on the thing they need to teach.”

Writing is notoriously subjective, but Simon also highlights the potential AI offers in removing some of this subjectivity. “You also get consistency, because the AI is marking it. Everyone’s getting the same message from a trust point of view, which makes moderation easier.” 


The next step will be the introduction of class and student reports, summarising progress and outlining next steps. Spelling will also be introduced to the marking criteria, alongside additional assessment points for years 2, 3 and 4. 


With thanks to the teachers at INMAT for their continuing feedback and contributions to the development of the Primary Writing LearnCycle service.

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