My situation is that teachers at my child’s primary school are asking me about how to assess students. There are three options such as using marks only, comments only, and both marks and comments.

Among the three options, I think using both marks and comments is the best choice because of some reasons. The first reason is that marks show students their performance clearly. For example, they can easily see if they improve or not. The second reason is that comments help them understand their strengths and weaknesses. For instance, teachers can give advice on how to study better. Finally, it combines the advantages of both methods. To be specific, students know their score and also receive useful feedback.

I don’t think that using marks only is suitable because students may focus too much on scores instead of learning. For instance, they might feel stressed or compare themselves with others.

Although using comments only is a good idea, I don’t choose it. Simply because it’s hard to measure students’ progress without numbers. To illustrate, some students need to see marks to understand their level.

To sum up, if I were in the case, I would choose using both marks and comments for the reasons I have mentioned.