Introduction: the hidden cost of assessment
Behind every confident learner is a teacher who has spent hours giving thoughtful feedback, tracking growth, and adjusting plans on the fly. These assessment-related responsibilities are essential. These assessment-related responsibilities are essential, and they take time to do thoughtfully for maximum impact.
That time matters. It’s your most precious professional resource. And at Teach Starter, we believe your time should work for you, not against you.
We’ve calculated the potential savings, so let’s break it down for you.
With resources designed by teachers for teachers, Teach Starter empowers you to streamline assessment, feedback, and reporting—so you can do what you do best, with more time and less stress.
1. Reframing assessment as a time investment, not a time drain
As you know, assessment isn’t a checklist, it’s a way to help students grow. But when your systems aren’t streamlined, collecting data can become a burden. The key is turning routine tasks into efficient, insight-driven practices.
With Teach Starter’s Student Progress Trackers, you can record observations and track growth in real time.
These trackers are flexible and accessible, available in printable or digital formats, so they fit seamlessly into your day. Whether you’re prepping for a parent meeting or planning next week’s small groups, the information is ready when you need it.
Time saved: 1–2 hours per week
2. Feedback that’s personalised without consuming your weekends
All the feedback you give is powerful. You know the difference a thoughtful comment makes. But offering that consistently across every student and subject? It can feel never-ending.
Teach Starter’s Editable Comment Banks are designed to help. Instead of starting from scratch, you get a bank of professionally crafted phrases aligned to curriculum outcomes, learning behaviours, and SEL goals.
They’re easy to personalise, so your feedback still sounds like you, but you’ll write faster, and with more clarity. Combine these with Assessment Rubrics, and you’ll have everything in one place: clear criteria, aligned language, and a system that supports student growth.
Time saved: 3–4 hours per assessment cycle
3. Peer and self-assessment: building student agency and saving time
You probably agree that students learn best when they reflect on their own work and learn from one another. Incorporating structured peer and self-assessment gives students ownership over their learning, while also sharing the feedback load in a purposeful, pedagogically sound way.
Teach Starter’s Self-Assessment Checklists give students the right scaffolds to reflect meaningfully. Metacognition, when used for self and peer assessment, is a powerful learning tool that promotes deep learning. And when students are engaged in their own assessment process, you know your feedback can go deeper, because they’ve already done the groundwork.
Time saved: 30 minutes per individual feedback session, with deeper student understanding as a bonus
4. Reporting that reflects the work you’ve already done
Report writing doesn’t have to mean a blank screen and late nights. If your data, rubrics, and comment bank are all aligned, you’re already most of the way there.
Teach Starter’s Report Writing Checklists help you translate everything you’ve already captured into cohesive, curriculum-aligned comments that are personalised and professional.
Rather than repeating the work, these checklists help you consolidate it. That’s time saved, rather than more work.
Time saved: 6–8 hours per reporting cycle
5. What you get with a Teach Starter subscription and why it matters
Every planning session, every prep block, every Sunday evening you spend on marking; we know that it all adds up. That’s why a Teach Starter subscription pays off in more ways than one – it’s not just about saving time, it’s about making every minute count and giving you peace of mind.
Here are just some of the assessment time savers a subscription gives you:
- 140+ ready-made assessment rubrics
- 80+ editable comment banks
- 160+ trackers and templates for collecting and reporting data
- 100s of curriculum-aligned teaching tools
Let’s say you save even one hour a week. That’s over 40 hours a year, an entire working week back in your hands!
In fact, based on our calculations, these tools could save you up to 100+ hours per school year.
It’s not just a subscription. It’s an investment in your own professional capacity and wellbeing.
Conclusion: you’re already the expert: let Teach Starter support you
You already know your students, your curriculum, and what it takes to help your class grow. Teach Starter equips you with tools to do the job faster, more efficiently, and with less stress.
When you spend less time reinventing the wheel, you gain more time to teach, build relationships, and enjoy the work you love.
Subscribe to Teach Starter and explore the assessment tools that thousands of teachers trust to streamline their workload and strengthen their impact.
Start your subscription today and take back your time.
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