Bede Burn Primary — A teacher marking journal built around one repeating lesson-review spread

The brief

Bede Burn came to us for a marking journal their teachers would actually use across the year — somewhere to capture what came out of every lesson, not in scattered post-its or planner margins, but in one consistent place per class.
The leadership team wanted two things in the same book. First, the school's marking codes printed at the front so every teacher — and every cover teacher walking into a room — is marking with the same symbols in the same places. Second, a repeating reflection spread for each lesson, structured around the things that actually inform next-day teaching: what to celebrate, where the misconceptions are, what action to take, and who needs support.
The journal needed to be quick to fill in between lessons, and consistent enough that a teacher flicking back through it can spot patterns across the term without hunting for them.

What we designed

Working with Bede Burn, we built a 68-page teacher marking journal anchored on a single repeating template.

An opening "Our Marking Codes" page setting out the shared system every teacher in the school uses — so for spelling errors, p for punctuation, g for grammar, // for new paragraph and ^ for inserting a word, all written in the margin on the line. Numbered Steps to Success for writing. Tick for correct and dot for incorrect in maths and reading. A tick on the page to acknowledge in everything else.
A repeating lesson-review spread used for every entry, with fields for date, lesson and absent pupils at the top, then four prompts laid out in a consistent grid: Strengths or Things to Celebrate, Issues or Misconceptions, Actions, and Support.
The same template repeated through the journal — two reviews per spread — so there's no decision to make between lessons. Each new lesson goes in the next blank slot.
68 pages in total, enough to take a teacher through a full year of teaching with the codes always to hand at the front.

The finished book

Every Bede Burn teacher works from the same marking codes and the same reflection structure across the year — strengths and misconceptions logged in one consistent place per class, with the actions and support that came out of them sitting on the same line.