Feedback That Moves Learning Forward

Teachers spend a large share of their working week on feedback. Some of it changes what pupils do next. Some of it is read once, if at all, and forgotten. The difference usually has less to do with how much is written and more to do with what the feedback is about, when it arrives, and whether pupils do anything with it.

What Hattie and Timperley said

In 2007 John Hattie and Helen Timperley published “The Power of Feedback” in the journal Review of Educational Research. Two ideas from it are especially useful in classrooms.

The first is that good feedback helps answer three questions:

• Where am I going? (What is the goal?)
• How am I going? (How close am I to it?)
• Where to next? (What should I do to get closer?)

Many comments only answer the second question. “Good work” or “6/10” tells a pupil roughly how they did, but not what to do differently.

The second idea is that feedback can work at four levels: the task (is this answer right?), the process (what strategy did you use?), self-regulation (how could you check your own work?), and the self (personal comments such as “you’re a star”). Hattie and Timperley found that feedback about the self, including general praise, tends to do little for learning because it says nothing about the work. Warmth and encouragement still matter for relationships. They just need to sit alongside comments about the work.

The paper also makes the point that the effect of feedback depends on how it is used, and that it can be negative as well as positive. More is not automatically better.

What the EEF guidance says

In 2021 the Education Endowment Foundation published “Teacher Feedback to Improve Pupil Learning”. It sets out three core recommendations:

1. Lay the foundations for effective feedback through high-quality initial teaching, including careful formative assessment.
2. Deliver appropriately timed feedback that focuses on moving learning forward.
3. Plan for how pupils will receive and use feedback.

The report deliberately moves away from arguments about written versus verbal feedback. It focuses on these principles and says schools’ policies should leave the choice of method and timing to teachers’ professional judgement. It also notes that written marking is only one form of feedback, and that heavy written marking has an opportunity cost: time spent writing comments is time not spent planning or developing subject knowledge.

The first recommendation is easy to skip past. If initial teaching is clear and you check understanding during the lesson, there is less to correct afterwards, and the feedback you do give can be shorter and sharper.

Verbal feedback

Verbal feedback is quick and immediate, and you can see straight away whether the pupil has understood. The EEF report cautions that it is not simply an easy alternative to written feedback. It still needs thought.

Some ways to make it count:

• Link the comment to the learning goal. “Your loop runs once too often. Look at the condition again” is more useful than “Nearly there.”
• Ask a question rather than giving the answer. “What happens to the variable on the last pass?”
• Ask the pupil to note down the action point in their own words, so it does not vanish when you walk away.
• Come back a few minutes later to check they have acted on it.

A visualiser is useful here. Put one pupil’s work under it (with permission, or anonymised), talk through what is working and what to change, and let everyone apply the same comment to their own work.

Whole-class feedback

Whole-class feedback is a popular way to cut marking time. You read a set of books or submissions, note common strengths and errors as you go, and then plan a short feedback session for the next lesson instead of writing comments in each book.

A simple record sheet might have columns for:

• strong examples to share
• common misconceptions
• spelling or vocabulary to revisit
• individual pupils to speak to

In the next lesson you might show two anonymised extracts, model how to fix a common error, and then give pupils ten minutes to improve their own work. Pupils who need more get a quick word at their desk.

Whole-class feedback fits the EEF principles when it is well timed, focused on what to do next, and followed by time for pupils to act. It works less well if it becomes a generic list that pupils cannot connect to their own work. Keep the examples concrete.

Make pupils do something with it

Feedback that pupils never act on has had no chance to help. Build time into the lesson for a response. That might mean:

• redrafting one paragraph
• correcting and re-running a piece of code
• trying two similar questions after a worked correction
• writing one target and checking it in the next piece of work

Some teachers ask pupils to predict the feedback before they receive it: “What do you think I am going to say about this?” Over time pupils start to apply that question to their own work before they hand it in, which links feedback to metacognition and self-regulation.

Workload

Marking policies have sometimes demanded detailed written comments in every book, often in a set colour or format. In 2016 the Independent Teacher Workload Review Group’s report on marking argued that all marking should be “meaningful, manageable and motivating”, and that deep marking often acts as a proxy for good teaching when it should not.

If you have any say over your department’s approach, ask a few questions:

• Who is this feedback for: the pupil, or someone checking books?
• Will pupils have time to act on it?
• Could the same improvement happen through verbal or whole-class feedback?
• What is the cost in teacher time, and what does that time replace?

If your school’s policy is fixed, the same principles still help. Spend more effort on the feedback pupils will use and less on comments nobody will read.

For TAs and support staff

Teaching assistants give feedback all lesson long, usually verbally and in the moment. The same principles apply. Point to the goal, ask a question before you give an answer, and check back later. If you notice the same mistake across several pupils, tell the teacher. That observation can shape the next lesson.

Further reading

• Hattie, J. and Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112.
• Education Endowment Foundation (2021). Teacher Feedback to Improve Pupil Learning: Guidance Report.
• Independent Teacher Workload Review Group (2016). Eliminating unnecessary workload around marking. Department for Education.