ACADEMICS6 MIN
Marking a hundred essays without lying to yourself
Author
Anita Rawat
Head of Middle School · 19 MAY 2026
Every teacher who has marked a large set knows the feeling: the standard you applied to essay four is not the standard you are applying to essay eighty-two. Rubric drift is real, measurable, and mostly ignored.
On rubric drift, the third-hour problem, and why we mark in randomised order.
Three things help. Mark in randomised order rather than roll-number order. Mark one question across all scripts before moving to the next. And re-mark five scripts from the start of the pile at the end, blind — if the grades move, the whole set needs another pass.
What we changed about homework, and what happened next
CLASSROOM7 MIN
What we changed about homework, and what happened next
Two years ago we cut written homework in the middle school by half. Here is the data, including the part that did not go the way we expected.
Anita Rawat
28 JULY 2026
Why we still read aloud in Grade 9
CLASSROOM5 MIN
Why we still read aloud in Grade 9
Reading aloud is treated as a primary-school activity. We kept it for fifteen-year-olds, and the comprehension results are the argument.
Rohit Menon
14 JULY 2026
Phones, and the boarding corridor at 10pm
BOARDING6 MIN
Phones, and the boarding corridor at 10pm
The phone policy parents ask about most, written out in full, including where we have compromised.
Farida Qureshi
30 JUNE 2026
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