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Temporary Comments

A feedback strategy where the teacher writes brief comments on learner work during the lesson using sticky notes or erasable markers, providing immediate guidance that learners act on before the lesson ends.

Assessment for learning
Temporary Comments diagram

What is temporary comments?

  • While learners are working, circulate and read their work in progress
  • Write a brief comment on a sticky note or in erasable pen directly on the work
  • The comment should be specific and actionable: something the learner can improve now
  • Learners read the comment, make the improvement, and remove or erase the note

How it works

Temporary comments provide feedback at the moment it can have the most impact: while learners are still working. Unlike marking that happens overnight and is returned the next day, temporary comments arrive when the learner's thinking is active and the work is still in progress.

The comment must be brief, specific, and actionable. "Your second paragraph needs a topic sentence that links to your argument" is useful. "Good effort" is not. The learner should be able to read the comment, understand what to do, and make the change within minutes.

Sticky notes work well because they are physically separate from the work. The learner reads the comment, acts on it, and removes the note. This means the final piece of work shows the improvement but not the prompt, which maintains learner ownership. Erasable markers on whiteboards or plastic wallets serve the same purpose.

Temporary comments are efficient for the teacher because they are short (a sentence or phrase) and targeted (one improvement per visit). Circulating during a twenty-minute writing task, a teacher might leave ten to fifteen temporary comments, each taking seconds to write but making an immediate difference to the quality of work being produced.

Classroom example

A Year 6 Languages, Literacy and Communication class in a Bridgend school is writing explanation texts about volcanoes. As learners write, the teacher circulates. She sticks a note on Ceri's work: "You have explained what happens but not why. Add a 'because' sentence." On Gethin's: "Your diagram is good. Add labels to connect it to your text." Both learners make the improvements within minutes. By the end of the lesson, the quality of the finished work is notably higher than if feedback had been given after submission.

Curriculum for Wales connection

Temporary comments develop the "Reflect" strand of thinking skills by providing real-time feedback that learners act on immediately, closing the gap between current work and the success criteria. They support cross-curricular literacy through targeted writing improvement and work across all AoLEs.

Rainbow Curriculum's Thinking Tools lens helps you plan where in-the-moment feedback strategies are used across your curriculum, ensuring that formative assessment happens during learning, not after it.

Tips

  • Keep comments to one sentence. If you need to say more, have a brief conversation instead.
  • Focus on the most impactful improvement, not every issue. One actionable comment is better than three overwhelming ones.
  • A common pitfall: writing comments that require explanation. If the learner has to ask "What do you mean?", the comment is too vague.
  • Use sticky notes rather than writing in the book so the feedback is temporary and the learner owns the improvement.
  • Combine with success criteria displays so your comments can reference specific criteria: "Check criterion 3."

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