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Feedback Using Comments Only

A marking approach where teachers provide written comments without grades, marks or levels, because research shows grades destroy the learning value of feedback.

Assessment for learning
Feedback Using Comments Only diagram

What is feedback using comments only?

  • Mark work using written comments only, with no grades, marks or levels
  • Focus comments on strengths and one specific area for improvement
  • Give learners time to read and act on the comments
  • Use comments from both teachers and peers

How it works

Feedback using comments only is exactly what it sounds like: marking that uses written comments without any accompanying grade, mark, level or numerical score. The research behind this is clear. When learners receive a comment alongside a grade, they ignore the comment and focus only on the grade. The moment a mark appears, formative feedback becomes summative in the learner's mind.

The comment should identify what the learner has done well (linked to the learning objective) and give one specific piece of advice on how to improve. This is formative marking. It tells the learner where they are and what to do next.

Comments can come from the teacher or from peers. Peer feedback using comments only is particularly powerful because the act of assessing someone else's work develops the assessor's understanding of quality. Both the giver and the receiver learn.

The feedback only becomes formative when the learner acts on it. Handing back books with beautifully written comments is pointless if learners flick to the back page, shrug, and put the book away. Build in allow time so learners read, understand and respond to the comment in the same lesson.

Classroom example

A Year 8 Languages, Literacy and Communication teacher in a Denbighshire school marks a set of creative writing pieces. Instead of giving a level, she writes: "Your opening paragraph creates a tense atmosphere through short sentences. In the next paragraph, try using a simile to help the reader picture the setting." In the following lesson, learners spend ten minutes responding to their comments. The teacher notices that the quality of second drafts is significantly higher than when she used to give levels alongside comments.

Curriculum for Wales connection

Comment-only marking supports the "Reflect" strand of developing thinking by helping learners evaluate and improve their own work. It develops cross-curricular literacy through dialogue between writer and assessor, and is central to making assessment for learning effective across all AoLEs.

Rainbow Curriculum's Thinking Tools lens helps you ensure that formative feedback strategies are planned consistently across your curriculum, so comment-only marking becomes standard practice.

Tips

  • If your school policy requires a grade, give the comment first and the grade separately later. Never put them side by side.
  • One improvement point per piece. More than one overwhelms and reduces the chance of any action.
  • A common pitfall: writing vague comments like "good effort" or "try harder." These are not formative. Be specific about what was good and what to improve.
  • Train learners in peer feedback using comments only. Give them sentence starters: "One thing you did well was... One thing to improve is..."

Source: Adapted from "How to develop thinking and assessment for learning in the classroom", Welsh Assembly Government, Guidance 044/2010.