New in GradingPal 2.0
You’re in Charge of How It Grades
Tell GradingPal how you mark and how it talks to students, in your own words. Save what you reuse. Mark an instruction “always include this” and it follows you to every new assignment — visible on the page, and removable any time.
Or change nothing. The defaults are the ones we would pick for you, and they are listed below.
Change Nothing, and It Still Does This
Instructions are for making GradingPal grade your way, not for making it work. On every assignment, with no setup at all, it already:
On every assignment, GradingPal:
- Grades against your rubric, one criterion at a time
- Quotes the evidence behind every judgement so you can check it
- Judges each student on their own work, never against classmates
- Flags anything it cannot read instead of guessing at it
- Leaves the final say with you: nothing is released until you share it
Four Ways to Make It Grade Like You
Each of these is a page of its own. Here is what each one is for.
Your Marking Rules, in Your Words
Write what moves the score, the way you would explain it to a student teacher. “Reward what the work does well, not what it fails to do.” “Accept g = 9.81 unless the question says otherwise.” Pick from a library of ready-made instructions or write your own, and save the ones you use again. The exact wording that gets used is always on screen — never hidden behind a link — so what you read is what it does.
Grammar, Checked. Scores, Untouched.
Turn on a single switch and GradingPal checks the writing, underlining each spelling, punctuation and grammar slip in the student’s own work. Click a finding to jump to it, dismiss anything you disagree with, and choose whether the writing is being held to UK or US conventions. Findings inform you and your student. Your rubric still decides the mark — if you want mechanics to count, that belongs in the rubric, where it always has.
Feedback in Their Language
Two separate choices. The language of the student’s work sets the standard it is judged against, down to UK versus US English. The language of the feedback sets what the student reads — the same as their work, a language you pick, or matched to each student automatically. A newcomer who reads Spanish gets feedback they can act on tonight, while your own view stays in English.
How the Feedback Reads
Six feedback styles, two lengths, and a tone that is either warm and encouraging or direct and rigorous. Format preferences are one tap — bullet points instead of paragraphs, for instance — and scores can be held back when you want students reading the comments before they see a number.
Two Lists, Two Different Jobs
Every assignment carries two separate lists, and keeping them apart matters more than it sounds. Grading rules change how work is scored. Feedback instructions change how it talks to students. In one combined box, “be lenient” and “be encouraging” pull in different directions and you can never tell which one moved a mark. Split, they do exactly what you meant: leniency lives on the scoring side, warmth on the writing side.
Write It Once, Not Every Sunday
Any instruction can be marked “always include this” — for all your classes, or only the ones you name. Choose specific classes and GradingPal pre-selects your other sections of the same subject, so three sections of Year 11 Physics cost no extra clicks.
Inherited instructions arrive on each new assignment as visible rows with an “Always on” badge, and you can remove one for a single assignment without touching the rest. Nothing is ever applied invisibly — if it is affecting how your work is graded, it is on the page in front of you.
What It Will Politely Refuse
You can write an instruction asking for anything. Two kinds of request get an answer rather than a silent attempt.
Things a Real Control Already Does
Ask for shorter feedback, or feedback in French, or for spelling to be checked, and GradingPal points you at the control built for it rather than quietly handling it twice. Two mechanisms doing the same job is how settings stop being predictable.
Things We Won’t Do at All
Detecting whether a student used AI to write something, and curving or ranking students against each other. Both are declined with a plain reason, at the moment you type them — not silently ignored, and not attempted badly. We would rather tell you no than let you believe something is happening that isn’t.
On AI detection specifically: the detectors are not reliable enough to accuse a student with, and false positives fall hardest on second-language writers. That is a position, not a limitation we are working around.
Do I Set This Every Time?
No. Here is where each control actually sits, so you know what you are committing to.
| Control | Set where | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Grading rules and feedback instructions | Per assignment, or marked always-on for chosen classes | Write it once, and it arrives on every new assignment in those classes as a visible, removable row |
| Grammar check | Per assignment | A single switch in the grading rules. Turning it on for already-graded work runs only the check — every score stays exactly where it was |
| Language of the work | Per assignment, defaulting from your country | A UK teacher gets UK English on every assignment with no setup at all |
| Feedback language | Per assignment | Defaults to the same language as the student’s work, which is right for most classes without touching anything |
| Style, length and tone | Per assignment | Existing assignments keep the tone their teacher already set. Nothing changes underneath you |
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if I never touch these settings?
GradingPal already grades against your rubric one criterion at a time, quotes the evidence behind every judgement, and flags what it cannot read. Instructions are for making it grade your way, not for making it work.
Do I have to set this up for every assignment?
No. Mark an instruction “always include this” and it arrives on every new assignment in the classes you choose, as a visible row you can remove for any single assignment. The rest of the controls default sensibly.
Can I see exactly what gets sent to the AI?
Yes. Every ready-made instruction shows the exact wording that will be used, on screen rather than behind a link, and anything you write yourself is used as written. What you read is what it does.
Will grammar findings change my students’ scores?
Only if your rubric says so. Grammar check shows findings to you and your student, and never moves a mark by itself. If you want mechanics to count, that belongs in your rubric.
Can I ask it to detect AI-written work?
No. GradingPal declines that request with a plain reason when you type it. Detectors are not reliable enough to accuse a student with, and false positives fall hardest on second-language writers.
Make It Grade Like You
Write one instruction in your own words, mark it always-on, and every assignment after that starts the way you would have marked it anyway.