King Edward’s School
Amaryllis Barton
KS3
English
Context and school background
King Edward's School, Birmingham, is a leading independent school with a strong academic tradition. Head of English Amaryllis Barton was interested in how AI-assisted assessment could provide richer insights into student writing while reducing the time burden associated with marking large numbers of essays.
The assessment challenge or question the school was trying to address
Like many English departments, the team wanted a better way to understand what students could and couldn't do as writers. Traditional marking provided useful information, but it was difficult to identify patterns across a whole cohort or generate detailed feedback at scale. The key question was whether AI-assisted assessment could provide meaningful diagnostic information without sacrificing professional judgement.
What the school did
The department used No More Marking's AI-assisted assessment to evaluate a set of student essays. Rather than relying solely on marks or grades, the system analysed students' writing and generated detailed feedback on strengths and areas for development. Teachers reviewed the outputs and considered how they aligned with their own understanding of students' work.
How students and teachers responded
Teachers found that the feedback often highlighted aspects of writing that would have taken significant time to identify manually across an entire cohort. The reports helped them spot common strengths and weaknesses and informed subsequent teaching. Students received more detailed feedback than would normally be practical to provide on every piece of work.
