Andrew Donnelly

OneNote for feedback on assessments and more

Rathmore Grammar School

Rathmore Grammar School is a co-educational grammar school in Belfast. It has 1,280 pupils aged 11 to 18 years of age. As the staff and pupils of Rathmore Grammar School had embraced OneNote in the years before COVID-19 restrictions they were well placed when remote learning started.

Andrew Donnelly is the Head of Technology in Rathmore teaching Technology to A Level.

In this video clip Andrew tells us about how 5 years ago he started using OneNote to manage the heavy coursework load for Technology and to give more precise feedback on assessments. He went on to use it for lessons and it was then adopted by the whole Technology department and the entire school.

Key learning

  • Although initially started in senior school as a means to submit coursework and access theory notes it is now widely used throughout each year group – start with one group in the school

  • Safe storage of material for pupils that negated the use of memory sticks and potential for corruption or damage – pupils had bank of previously submitted work easily accessible

  • The quality of feedback has improved – being able to annotate directly onto pupil submissions

  • Sharing of materials/notes for pupils which can be accessed at any stage – particularly useful for pupils who have been absent

  • Good vehicle for sharing good practice with colleagues

Points to consider:

  • Important to persevere with programme as it can be intimidating at first due to the blank “look”

  • Much more efficient means to work for staff as resources are developed continually in a collaborative manner

  • Takes time to build up resources in a manner to suit your subject and teaching but means that you can simply edit or improve annually with all resources centrally located

  • Start with the basics and build upon this – think about how pupils will access material and take time to teach this

  • Use regularly – explain to pupils, particularly in KS3, how to access class notes etc

  • Produce “How To” documents or short videos to demonstrate features for pupils and staff

  • In Technology we use OneNote in three main ways, and to varying degrees:

1. Storage and sharing of resources amongst colleagues that can be easily extracted and used within classes

2. As a classwork tool – annotating notes or documents, recording video/audio etc which can be accessed easily by pupils across all platforms

3. Providing focussed feedback on pupil work