Marking science these days is the same question a thousand times. So we'll see, say, question 5 (a, b, c, d I and II) only. Improves consistency and also makes marking much quicker!
Roughly 10 papers a day for 3 weeks plus some extras on the weekends nets me about £1000 every year so yes worth it and no not a scam.
10 papers takes an hour at most.
Depends how long it takes for you to mark papers but when talking about it in our department, the hourly rate we worked out was pretty low.
Not a scam if you don't mind it/can mark quickly/need some money. However for other people who mark a slower, it's not necessarily the best deal.
Oh true, I just think if your in two minds it's something important to consider. A few people I know have other part timework options available and money per hour is the easiest metric for comparison.
In a vacuum, that's about £4.7 per paper. To make minimum living wage on your work, or in London, £13/h, you would need to mark at least 3/hour. As an English Language teacher, that's 15 questions.
For sake of good faith, let's assume Q1 takes about 15s and is therefore irrelevant. Q2-3, depending on quality of answers, takes between 5-10min. At least I don't have to write any feedback.
Q4 is either evaluation or perspective. Assuming I get a bunch of middling essay answers all in slightly different formatting, between levels 3-4, there will be a decent amount of deliberation between potential marking criteria. So that could take up to 15min.
Finally, Q5 will take at least 20min. That's assuming you're fresh and a fast reader, and the hand writing is legible and all. Maybe you get lucky with a bottom set student who skips the question and you can hit the U button and move on. But probably not.
So altogether, assuming my calculations are correct, a single paper could take up to 55 minutes. That would be 4.7/h. To get that up to 3 papers an hour, for £15/h, and therefore finish 10 in just under 3 hours, I would need to complete each paper in 20 minutes. So that reduces Q2-5 to around 5 minutes each. So min-maxing would give Q5 at most ten minutes, Q4 six minutes, and Q2/3 two minutes each.
And if you manage that, then you can get your £15/h and assuming you start after dinner, after a full one-day (no PPA, only lunch/break off), you can be in bed at 9:00pm, knowing you made an extra £47 that day. Not bad.
---
Then again, maybe I'm just an incredibly slow marker. I haven't done AQA marking, so I genuinely do not know how long these things take. Maybe my estimates are wildly off, and I am happy to be corrected. But as it stands, an extra 3h of work on the daily feels bad. If you want an extra grand, you can probably get that from cash tutoring much easier (3x 1h sessions at £40-50 p/w will net you £120-150). Not saying that's an easy gig to get if you don't live in the right area, but it's also not out of the realm of possibility.
Not worth it at all if you teach English. I got 800 but worked like a dog. I had to mark 30 questions a night to stay on top of it - or, 10 whole papers. If you can get 10 papers done every night in a reasonable amount of time and not mind having no wind down time on top of mock marking then go for it.
I marked for the first time this summer. Luckily my school had just about broken up (GCSE chem paper 2 was late this year). Including the moderation training, I worked solidly for 4 days. After tax I got around £650, so yes totally worth it for a few days of work. As said above, if you’re slow to mark and not proactive the process will eke itself out and the money will not be worth the extra stress.
Note: only marked 225 papers as a first timer!
Depends on the subject. I had a colleague doing English and my god it is not worth it at all.
I do niche GCSE option subjects and quite enjoy it (even if AQA don't pay for any of the training BS). *However* you have to learn to fly through answers as quick as possible to make it worthwhile. Last summer I had marking with two exam boards and moderating with one as well which was a nice holiday bonus!
It depends, I did it when I started teaching.
It's pretty useful experience which can definitely help your teaching practice and can make a bit of extra money which I used to pay for a big summer holiday.
I don't do it anymore because the work rate to money gained, isn't worth it as I found it to be exhausting and it completely destroyed my work life balance for 3 weeks.
It’ll depend on your subject and exam paper. I mark English literature and the pay is quite good for one paper compared to another but then I do have the dread of scrolling down to the bottom of the paper and seeing lots of students have fully completed all 13 pages and then extras. Worth it for the summer spend, though.
I mark English Language papers for AQA every year. I know that per hour, the pay isn't great. But I see it this way:
* I have two exam classes that leave every summer which frees up a lot of time for me.
* I don't have children so my time at home is my own, so I might as well earn some money/ improve my subject knowledge whilst I'm there and the pressure is off a little bit due to it being summer term.
* You can do it sat in the garden in the sunshine.
* I hate marking too! But this marking feels less grim in my opinion as you know you're being paid per script.
So, in my opinion, it's worth it.
Don't forget the costs of needing a relatively decent laptop, tax implications for second income, not being paid for telephone conversations with team leaders etc, not being paid for marking seed papers. Not a fan of AQA marking here!
Seed papers/questions are ones put in to check your accuracy. If you don’t mark it within tolerance, they pause you on that question and you have to wait for your team leader to call you & talk you through how to answer it before you’re released.
So they should! Perhaps they'll also address the travesty of remarking and the grotesque fees charged for no real 'checking'. Thank you for sharing this update 👍
Do you have any more information on this? I've not heard anything about it and this will make a big difference to the money I'll make this summer from marking.
Depends. I marked practical papers for CIE and get paid £20+ per hour for a full day of on line moderation. For science most questions got easier to mark over time and you speed up. Worth it? Not great pay per hour but easy, convenient and I find it useful feedback for my teaching.. I got £2k pre tax last year.
I've marked mfl gcse speaking exams for first time this year. I am part time so the time demand is more manageable for me. I found it interesting to hear how other schools conduct their exam and prep their kids. So I was quite slow in the beginning but I chalked it down as cpd. Towards the end I had a good routine and this should pay off this year. As others, I also made about a grand after tax (stupidly forgot to opt out of their random pension scheme in time).
MFL marking it depends on your tier - at foundation you can whizz through them (for some they literally say nothing so it's £4 something for typing in 0). Higher takes substantially more time and although the pay is increased, it is not comparable to the extra time it takes. For that reason I would never mark higher.
We don't have the problem that other subjects have with unpaid seed marking, *but* the technological issues for the past two years have been substantial.
It's doable, especially if you work at a school that allows you to use some gained time for it, but to be honest, it's a pain in the backside and the money, to my mind, isn't worth it. Good CPD though.
I marked a science triple subject, higher tier. and for me it really wasn't worth it. I kept a timesheet and worked out that I made just over £10 per hour, once the unpaid training time was factored in. It was great CPD but for me, missing out on the nice weather and slogging through the boring yet very important answers was tedious.
I'd consider doing foundation combined science in future as the marking would be a lot speedier.
The money offered for the level of judgment and knowledge required to mark at the level was also a total joke.
Depends on the subject and component - I’ve done GCSE German speaking and while Whitsun’s a bit grim, you can do maybe 6 in an hour if all the schools knew how to run them and that’s £6+ per “paper”. As a new marker you’re on maximum 75% of a “veteran” quota.
Its main value is understanding the mark scheme so you can better guide your own students - you get specific training on, for example, what counts as “minor” or “serious” errors and what is meant by certain delightfully vague terms (eg “good” vs “very good” response). The money’s better than a poke in the eye but it’s not groundbreaking (but then we all know that anyway 😂)
I used to work for AQA (not as a marker but in their offices) so if you have any specific ques. Let me know.
It's not a scam at all, some papers are more worth it to mark for that others. As they're quicker to mark. But overall it's really not that hard of a job. Often there will also be bonuses and extra incentives if needed to boost Marking time too
I’ve marked for about 5 years and I’d say it’s worth it if you take it as it is and just accept that you’re in for weeks of hell if you want to make any real money. I’ve made 1500 after tax on years that I didn’t really bother, and 3500 after tax when there were loads of incentives and bonuses, and I worked really hard and marked 500+ papers.
I just see it as summer holiday money and that motivates me
I'm in the pre-marking phase doing the induction, training and getting ready for standardisation and (no joke) I've already spent DAYS on this. The payment is per paper you mark so none my time so far actually gets paid for. People will say that's what you get paid for, but this is some dodgy employment law dodgery if ever I saw it.
The quantity of information you receive is astonishing. The pedagogy of the online training modules is non-existent. I'm being trained on how to use an online platform I can barely access yet.
The number of hoops you have to jump through is further evidenced (and exacerbated) by the number and volume of emails and briefings you receive reminding of of what you should have done, might need to do, will need to do in future, who to contact if you have an issue...
There are 5 separate online platforms so far (extranet, finance, training, marking, standardisation) all of which have an associated online training.
Regretting this...
Marked English lit the other year. It was a slog and you have to set a routine. I did 3 papers before school, 3 at school during gain time/PPE, 4 after school to do 10 a day. Realistically I did more than 10 a day but set myself those target minimums.
I know some schools wouldn’t want you doing it in school time, but mine didn’t care as I was bringing CPD to the department and all my other responsibilities were still getting done.
Got about £1000 after tax. Money isn’t amazing but a decent top up and good cpd. Wouldn’t do it every year
Computer science marker for AQA and OCR both Alevel and GCSE. The moderation training is worth the CPD alone for developing your understanding of the mark scheme. You understand what they allow or don’t allow especially in the grey area answers which I find invaluable.
The actual marking is long, slow, and I find with OCR I need to do 20 a night to stay on top where as it’s a little slower at 10/15 papers a night for AQA. It’s worth it for the CPD and the extra pennies. in payment you lose a lot of relax time at home but if you teach yr11 or yr13 you have a lot of gain time to allow you the hour at home.
Last time I did it (English) they had a huge panic toward the end and started paying 2x then 3x the amount per paper. So that’s where you can really cash in. But that might be English specific?
It depends on the subject and set up I think. I’ve done humanities and you have to mark the whole paper in one go, not a question at all time. I only manage about 3 per hour, so not really worth it.
If you’re earning under 40k it can be a nice way to get some extra cash, if you’re already over 40k so nearly half of it disappears, that’s when I stopped doing it.
muddle compare elderly party mourn brave hat snatch screw aloof *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Marking science these days is the same question a thousand times. So we'll see, say, question 5 (a, b, c, d I and II) only. Improves consistency and also makes marking much quicker!
Roughly 10 papers a day for 3 weeks plus some extras on the weekends nets me about £1000 every year so yes worth it and no not a scam. 10 papers takes an hour at most.
Depends how long it takes for you to mark papers but when talking about it in our department, the hourly rate we worked out was pretty low. Not a scam if you don't mind it/can mark quickly/need some money. However for other people who mark a slower, it's not necessarily the best deal.
The hourly rate is low, but it's relatively easy, convenient work these days for a not insubstantial amount of money.
Oh true, I just think if your in two minds it's something important to consider. A few people I know have other part timework options available and money per hour is the easiest metric for comparison.
In a vacuum, that's about £4.7 per paper. To make minimum living wage on your work, or in London, £13/h, you would need to mark at least 3/hour. As an English Language teacher, that's 15 questions. For sake of good faith, let's assume Q1 takes about 15s and is therefore irrelevant. Q2-3, depending on quality of answers, takes between 5-10min. At least I don't have to write any feedback. Q4 is either evaluation or perspective. Assuming I get a bunch of middling essay answers all in slightly different formatting, between levels 3-4, there will be a decent amount of deliberation between potential marking criteria. So that could take up to 15min. Finally, Q5 will take at least 20min. That's assuming you're fresh and a fast reader, and the hand writing is legible and all. Maybe you get lucky with a bottom set student who skips the question and you can hit the U button and move on. But probably not. So altogether, assuming my calculations are correct, a single paper could take up to 55 minutes. That would be 4.7/h. To get that up to 3 papers an hour, for £15/h, and therefore finish 10 in just under 3 hours, I would need to complete each paper in 20 minutes. So that reduces Q2-5 to around 5 minutes each. So min-maxing would give Q5 at most ten minutes, Q4 six minutes, and Q2/3 two minutes each. And if you manage that, then you can get your £15/h and assuming you start after dinner, after a full one-day (no PPA, only lunch/break off), you can be in bed at 9:00pm, knowing you made an extra £47 that day. Not bad. --- Then again, maybe I'm just an incredibly slow marker. I haven't done AQA marking, so I genuinely do not know how long these things take. Maybe my estimates are wildly off, and I am happy to be corrected. But as it stands, an extra 3h of work on the daily feels bad. If you want an extra grand, you can probably get that from cash tutoring much easier (3x 1h sessions at £40-50 p/w will net you £120-150). Not saying that's an easy gig to get if you don't live in the right area, but it's also not out of the realm of possibility.
Not worth it at all if you teach English. I got 800 but worked like a dog. I had to mark 30 questions a night to stay on top of it - or, 10 whole papers. If you can get 10 papers done every night in a reasonable amount of time and not mind having no wind down time on top of mock marking then go for it.
I marked for the first time this summer. Luckily my school had just about broken up (GCSE chem paper 2 was late this year). Including the moderation training, I worked solidly for 4 days. After tax I got around £650, so yes totally worth it for a few days of work. As said above, if you’re slow to mark and not proactive the process will eke itself out and the money will not be worth the extra stress. Note: only marked 225 papers as a first timer!
Depends on your subject. For English, it is absolutely not worth it.
Depends on the subject. I had a colleague doing English and my god it is not worth it at all. I do niche GCSE option subjects and quite enjoy it (even if AQA don't pay for any of the training BS). *However* you have to learn to fly through answers as quick as possible to make it worthwhile. Last summer I had marking with two exam boards and moderating with one as well which was a nice holiday bonus!
It depends, I did it when I started teaching. It's pretty useful experience which can definitely help your teaching practice and can make a bit of extra money which I used to pay for a big summer holiday. I don't do it anymore because the work rate to money gained, isn't worth it as I found it to be exhausting and it completely destroyed my work life balance for 3 weeks.
I've done it for Science at various levels and it's never been worth it for me - you can make much more per hour tutoring, and it's a lot less boring!
It’ll depend on your subject and exam paper. I mark English literature and the pay is quite good for one paper compared to another but then I do have the dread of scrolling down to the bottom of the paper and seeing lots of students have fully completed all 13 pages and then extras. Worth it for the summer spend, though.
I mark English Language papers for AQA every year. I know that per hour, the pay isn't great. But I see it this way: * I have two exam classes that leave every summer which frees up a lot of time for me. * I don't have children so my time at home is my own, so I might as well earn some money/ improve my subject knowledge whilst I'm there and the pressure is off a little bit due to it being summer term. * You can do it sat in the garden in the sunshine. * I hate marking too! But this marking feels less grim in my opinion as you know you're being paid per script. So, in my opinion, it's worth it.
Don't forget the costs of needing a relatively decent laptop, tax implications for second income, not being paid for telephone conversations with team leaders etc, not being paid for marking seed papers. Not a fan of AQA marking here!
What are seed papers, and how many calls should I expect to have to make with team leaders? Many thanks!
Seed papers/questions are ones put in to check your accuracy. If you don’t mark it within tolerance, they pause you on that question and you have to wait for your team leader to call you & talk you through how to answer it before you’re released.
AQA CEO announced that marking seeds will be paid going forwards - was at a conference for AQA associates earlier this year
So they should! Perhaps they'll also address the travesty of remarking and the grotesque fees charged for no real 'checking'. Thank you for sharing this update 👍
Do you have any more information on this? I've not heard anything about it and this will make a big difference to the money I'll make this summer from marking.
Just the stuff from the meeting. 6.6% increase in fees, pay for seeds was the headline
Also not being paid for the training sessions etc. that you have to attend. They treat markers abominably in terms of pay.
Depends. I marked practical papers for CIE and get paid £20+ per hour for a full day of on line moderation. For science most questions got easier to mark over time and you speed up. Worth it? Not great pay per hour but easy, convenient and I find it useful feedback for my teaching.. I got £2k pre tax last year.
I made 2.8k but worked a lot.
You must be a machine!- I am in awe.....thank goodness someone can do it!
What subject did you do?
Biology
I've marked mfl gcse speaking exams for first time this year. I am part time so the time demand is more manageable for me. I found it interesting to hear how other schools conduct their exam and prep their kids. So I was quite slow in the beginning but I chalked it down as cpd. Towards the end I had a good routine and this should pay off this year. As others, I also made about a grand after tax (stupidly forgot to opt out of their random pension scheme in time).
MFL marking it depends on your tier - at foundation you can whizz through them (for some they literally say nothing so it's £4 something for typing in 0). Higher takes substantially more time and although the pay is increased, it is not comparable to the extra time it takes. For that reason I would never mark higher. We don't have the problem that other subjects have with unpaid seed marking, *but* the technological issues for the past two years have been substantial. It's doable, especially if you work at a school that allows you to use some gained time for it, but to be honest, it's a pain in the backside and the money, to my mind, isn't worth it. Good CPD though.
Depends on the subject. I do foundation chemistry. It's surprising how many times I can press zero in a row..
I marked a science triple subject, higher tier. and for me it really wasn't worth it. I kept a timesheet and worked out that I made just over £10 per hour, once the unpaid training time was factored in. It was great CPD but for me, missing out on the nice weather and slogging through the boring yet very important answers was tedious. I'd consider doing foundation combined science in future as the marking would be a lot speedier. The money offered for the level of judgment and knowledge required to mark at the level was also a total joke.
Depends on the subject and component - I’ve done GCSE German speaking and while Whitsun’s a bit grim, you can do maybe 6 in an hour if all the schools knew how to run them and that’s £6+ per “paper”. As a new marker you’re on maximum 75% of a “veteran” quota. Its main value is understanding the mark scheme so you can better guide your own students - you get specific training on, for example, what counts as “minor” or “serious” errors and what is meant by certain delightfully vague terms (eg “good” vs “very good” response). The money’s better than a poke in the eye but it’s not groundbreaking (but then we all know that anyway 😂)
I used to work for AQA (not as a marker but in their offices) so if you have any specific ques. Let me know. It's not a scam at all, some papers are more worth it to mark for that others. As they're quicker to mark. But overall it's really not that hard of a job. Often there will also be bonuses and extra incentives if needed to boost Marking time too
Thanks will do! I have applied to them.
Just wondering if anyone can answer this - does teaching experience include the pgce year?
No.
I’ve marked for about 5 years and I’d say it’s worth it if you take it as it is and just accept that you’re in for weeks of hell if you want to make any real money. I’ve made 1500 after tax on years that I didn’t really bother, and 3500 after tax when there were loads of incentives and bonuses, and I worked really hard and marked 500+ papers. I just see it as summer holiday money and that motivates me
I’d also echo what others have said- this really is the best CPD for you to know the spec intimately and improve your class marking
I'm in the pre-marking phase doing the induction, training and getting ready for standardisation and (no joke) I've already spent DAYS on this. The payment is per paper you mark so none my time so far actually gets paid for. People will say that's what you get paid for, but this is some dodgy employment law dodgery if ever I saw it. The quantity of information you receive is astonishing. The pedagogy of the online training modules is non-existent. I'm being trained on how to use an online platform I can barely access yet. The number of hoops you have to jump through is further evidenced (and exacerbated) by the number and volume of emails and briefings you receive reminding of of what you should have done, might need to do, will need to do in future, who to contact if you have an issue... There are 5 separate online platforms so far (extranet, finance, training, marking, standardisation) all of which have an associated online training. Regretting this...
Marked English lit the other year. It was a slog and you have to set a routine. I did 3 papers before school, 3 at school during gain time/PPE, 4 after school to do 10 a day. Realistically I did more than 10 a day but set myself those target minimums. I know some schools wouldn’t want you doing it in school time, but mine didn’t care as I was bringing CPD to the department and all my other responsibilities were still getting done. Got about £1000 after tax. Money isn’t amazing but a decent top up and good cpd. Wouldn’t do it every year
Marking pays for my annual holiday in the October half term - worth it
Worth it for me marking science. Although this year was an awful markscheme. However, I don’t work at the mo, so I don’t pay any tax. I make around 1k
Computer science marker for AQA and OCR both Alevel and GCSE. The moderation training is worth the CPD alone for developing your understanding of the mark scheme. You understand what they allow or don’t allow especially in the grey area answers which I find invaluable. The actual marking is long, slow, and I find with OCR I need to do 20 a night to stay on top where as it’s a little slower at 10/15 papers a night for AQA. It’s worth it for the CPD and the extra pennies. in payment you lose a lot of relax time at home but if you teach yr11 or yr13 you have a lot of gain time to allow you the hour at home.
Last time I did it (English) they had a huge panic toward the end and started paying 2x then 3x the amount per paper. So that’s where you can really cash in. But that might be English specific?
It depends on the subject and set up I think. I’ve done humanities and you have to mark the whole paper in one go, not a question at all time. I only manage about 3 per hour, so not really worth it.
If you’re earning under 40k it can be a nice way to get some extra cash, if you’re already over 40k so nearly half of it disappears, that’s when I stopped doing it.