In most English departments, several teachers cover An Inspector Calls at the same time. Each one has slightly different instincts about what a Grade 6 essay looks like. Those differences are invisible until a parent, a head of year or a mock results meeting points them out.

Moderation is the process of bringing those instincts into line. Done well, it takes an hour or two per cycle and improves the fairness of every mark. Done badly, it becomes a meeting where people defend their own marking.

The play itself makes moderation easier in some ways. The set of topics is small, so it is realistic to build a shared bank of example responses at each level.

The steps below describe a light process that fits into a busy term.

Start with blind marking

Choose four or five essays, remove names, and have every teacher mark them independently. Collect the marks before anyone talks. The spread you see, often two or three grades on the same script, is the honest starting point for discussion.

• Pick scripts that cover a range of levels, including at least one borderline case
• Remove student names and prior grades before circulating
• Ask each marker to note the two features that most influenced their mark
• Compare the marks and reasons in a short meeting
• Agree final marks and write them down as department anchors

Discuss the reasons, not the numbers

When two teachers give different marks, the useful question is what each one saw. One may have rewarded a strong use of context while another focused on the lack of structure. Naming those differences brings the criteria into the open.

Keep a running document of decisions such as how much to penalize an essay that skips the last act. Over time this becomes a working guide for new colleagues.

Keep it going through the term

One session at the start of the unit is not enough. Marks drift again as the term gets busy. A short check halfway through, using one or two fresh scripts, keeps the group aligned.

Sampling a few scripts from each teacher's set is another light-touch option. It gives heads of department a view of consistency without asking anyone to remark everything.

Using a shared tool as a common reference

A rubric-based AI grader such as GraideMind can act as a neutral reference point. When every teacher runs their class set through the same rubric, the first-pass scores and comments follow the same criteria, and differences between classes become easier to explain. It does not replace moderation discussions; it gives them better evidence.

Departments that use a shared tool often find that the most useful conversations happen where the human marker and the tool disagree. Those cases point to gaps in the rubric worth fixing.