What are bookwork checks?

Sparx developed Bookwork Checks in partnership with our early adopter schools, as a way to ensure students were writing down their workings without giving teachers the additional work of checking that they were doing so.

Writing down workings has positive benefits

We included this unique element of book working because:

• Research shows that writing down workings aids mathematical retention.
• It helps students prepare for written exams.
• Writing workings as well as just inputting answers helps teachers identify mistakes and misconceptions.

Bookwork codes

• Each question presented to students has a code that is displayed at the top of the question screen:
• This code is formed of a number (which corresponds to the task number) and a letter (which corresponds to the position within the task). 
• Students must note down this code before they do their workings and answer their questions.
• Using randomised codes helps make it harder for students to rely on guesswork when they are given a bookwork check.

The automated Bookwork Check

• Periodically during a student's homework, they will see a Bookwork Check.
• They are given a code from a question that they answered recently and will be asked what the correct answer for this question was.
• We ask students to recall the correct answer to a previous question without showing the content of the question to check they have written down the answers and workings clearly in their books.

We only check recent and correct homework answers

• Students receive bookwork checks only on questions within the homework that they are working on that they have answered correctly within the last real-time hour of using Sparx.
• They will not receive checks on:
  • Questions that they haven't yet answered correctly.
  • Questions they completed over an hour ago.
  • Questions from a different homework type. For example, they won't be checked on questions they answered in their Compulsory homework whilst they are doing XP Boost or Target homework.