Shared Marksheets for a Whole Department: How GradeDrive's Free Markbook Works Across an Organisation

A Markbook That Belongs to a Department, Not Just One Teacher

We've already written about GradeDrive's free markbook: classes, a live markbook, question-level analysis, grade tracking against targets, and marksheet export, included free on every account, on every plan. What that post didn't cover, because the two features started out as separate conversations, is what happens when a department or trust buys GradeDrive through our Organizations feature. The markbook isn't locked to one teacher's personal account there either. It can belong to the department itself, visible to every teacher in it.

What "Shared" Actually Means, Day to Day

Inside an organisation, a class, course or student roster is set up once, as belonging to the department rather than to whoever happened to create it, and from that point every active member of the organisation can see it. A head of department building out a class list doesn't mean four other teachers each building their own copy of the same list. One shared roster, one shared set of classes, visible to the whole team the moment they're added.

That's a genuine shared resource, not a read-only summary: the same question-level analysis, grade tracking against GCSE, A-level, IB or BTEC boundaries, and CSV/XLSX export that the free markbook already does for an individual teacher works exactly the same way for a department's shared classes.

If a teacher leaves, or an account gets removed from the organisation, the department's marksheets don't go with them. They're owned by the organisation itself, not by whichever teacher happened to set them up first.

Three Ways to Control Who Can Edit It

Shared read access is one thing; shared write access is a different question, and not every department wants the same answer. An Org Manager chooses from three policies for the organisation's marksheets:

• Shared. Any active member can edit any class, assessment or mark. The simplest option, and the right one for a small, trusting department that already works this way informally.
• Own, or a manager. The default. Whoever created a class or entered a mark can edit it, and an Org Manager can edit anything, as a safety net, without every teacher in the department having write access to everyone else's classes.
• Manager only. Only an Org Manager can make changes. Everyone else sees the department's marksheets but can't edit them, useful where one person is deliberately responsible for keeping the data clean.

Whichever policy is set, it's a department-wide setting, not something decided class by class, and an Org Manager can change it later if the way the department actually works turns out to be different from how they first set it up.

Still Completely Free

Worth repeating plainly, because it's easy to assume a shared, department-wide version of a feature comes with a bigger price tag attached: it doesn't. The organisation's AI marking page allowance, whether pooled or allocated per teacher, is entirely separate from the markbook. Tracking and shared marksheets don't draw down an organisation's page allowance any more than they draw down an individual teacher's. A department using GradeDrive purely to mark gets the shared markbook included, at no extra cost, whether or not every teacher in it ever uses it.

What's Next: Marking That Lands in the Markbook Without Anyone Typing It In

We said this plainly in the first markbook post and it's still true: getting a set of AI-marked results into a markbook, shared or personal, is a manual step today. You enter the scores, or import them by CSV, the same as any other assessment column. Full, automatic sync, so an AI-marked assessment lands straight in the right class's markbook without anyone touching it, is on our roadmap. For a shared, department-owned markbook specifically, that also means the result would need to land in the right organisation-owned class, not just any markbook, which is part of why we're building it properly rather than shipping a shortcut version first. We'd rather say plainly that it isn't built yet than let it sound more finished than it is.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a whole department share one markbook on GradeDrive?

Yes. Inside an Organization, classes, courses and student rosters can be owned by the organisation itself rather than by one teacher, and every active member can see them.

Who can edit a shared department marksheet?

Depends on the policy an Org Manager sets: anyone in the department, only the person who created that entry (plus an Org Manager as a safety net, the default), or only an Org Manager.

Does a shared marksheet cost extra, or use up the department's AI marking allowance?

No. The markbook and marksheet export are free on every GradeDrive account, individual or organisation, and never touch the AI marking page allowance.

What happens to a department's shared marksheets if a teacher leaves?

Nothing. They belong to the organisation, not to the teacher who created them, so they stay exactly as they are.

Does AI marking automatically fill in the shared markbook?

Not yet. Moving AI-marked results into any markbook, personal or shared, is a manual entry or CSV import step today. Automatic sync is planned, not built.

Internal Links

For the full markbook feature set this builds on, see Free Marksheets and Class Tracking, Now Included With Every GradeDrive Account. For how an Organization's AI marking page allowance, roles and setup work, see How GradeDrive Organizations Work. For the broader picture of buying GradeDrive for a department or trust, see For Schools & Trusts. For what AI marking itself looks like end to end, see AI Marking for GCSE and A Level.