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Grade Orbit

What's New

New updates and improvements to GradeOrbit.

1.64.0

Collapsible navigation sidebar

You can now collapse the side navigation into compact icons whenever you want more screen space to mark work, review cohorts, or adjust criteria.

Improvements

  • More room for what matters: Click the collapse button at the top of the sidebar to shrink it to icon-only mode, maximizing horizontal space for marking grids and pupil work.
  • Clear labels on hover: When collapsed, hovering over any navigation icon reveals a tooltip showing exactly where that link leads.
  • Remembers your choice: GradeOrbit saves your preference automatically across pages, tabs, and visits.
  • Keyboard shortcut: Press Cmd+B (or Ctrl+B on Windows) to quickly toggle between expanded and icon-only views.
1.61.3

Download mark schemes and reference texts

You can now download the original files for any mark scheme or reference text directly from the app — individually or in a tidy zip archive.

Improvements

  • From tables or while editing: Download icon buttons are now available directly in the mark schemes table, reference texts table, and their edit screens.
  • Multi-page documents download as a zip: Any mark scheme or reference text with multiple pages downloads automatically packaged into a .zip file with neatly numbered pages (page-01.jpg, page-02.jpg, etc.).
  • Single pages download directly: Single-page rubrics download straight as the original image or file without needing to unzip anything.
  • Works seamlessly across both personal and school-shared rubrics.
1.60.21

More marks every month, same price

Every plan now includes more marks per month at exactly the price you pay today — enough on the smallest plan to mark a full class of 30 every month.

Improvements

  • Basic goes from 20 to 30 marks a month — a whole class of 30.
  • Pro goes from 60 to 80 marks a month.
  • Max goes from 150 to 180 marks a month.
  • Prices are unchanged on both monthly and yearly plans, and yearly still gives you two months free.
  • Already on a plan? Your bigger allowance is on your account right now — there’s nothing you need to do.
1.60.18

See the mark scheme without leaving the result

You can now open the mark scheme and any reference material right from a result — no more digging back through the assessment to check what a grade was actually measured against.

Improvements

  • Solo: a new Scheme pill sits next to Original and Transcript on the marking screen — switch to it to see the mark scheme pages you uploaded.
  • School: a Scheme button on each result opens the mark scheme and reference material in a pop-up, so you can check the rubric while deciding whether to approve a grade.
  • Page through multi-page mark schemes and zoom in on dense mark grids — on desktop or phone.
  • Pupils never see this — the mark scheme can contain the answers.
1.60.16

No grade when there's nothing to grade against

Marking without a mark scheme no longer produces a grade — there was nothing behind it. You still get the full transcription, summary, feedback and suggested improvements.

Improvements

  • If no mark scheme is attached, we now tell you before marking starts, with a one-click way to attach one first.
  • If you go ahead without one, the grade area explains why it’s empty instead of just looking broken.
  • A maths paper that prints its own marks (e.g. “[2 marks]” beside each question) still gets a real total — the rule is about having a genuine basis for a grade, not about the subject.
  • We’ve also removed a quiet substitution: marking used to silently borrow your first saved mark scheme at the right level if none was attached. That no longer happens — if you see fewer grades on marks that used to have one, this is why.
1.60.14

Being straighter about who is telling you this

Where we compare marking tools, we now say up front that we make one of them. And every teacher quote on our site names their college or school, with a link so you can check it.

Improvements

  • Any article of ours that ranks or compares marking tools now carries a note at the top saying we publish GradeOrbit and GradeOrbit is in the list.
  • Links to those articles now describe them as our own comparison, rather than sounding like a neutral review.
  • Every quote from a teacher on our site now names the person, their role and their college or school, and links to that school’s official Department for Education record.
  • Where someone who writes for us is also quoted as a teacher, that is stated on the quote, and they are never counted as an independent recommendation.
1.60.12

Earn 20 credits for recommending GradeOrbit

There’s now a referral link in your sidebar and under Account › Referrals. Share it with a colleague and you’ll get 20 credits once they’ve marked their first piece of work.

Improvements

  • One click copies your link — paste it into a message or a staffroom email.
  • The credits arrive when the person you referred finishes their first mark, not when they sign up.
  • They land in your normal balance and never expire, so a reward earned this month is still there next term.
  • Your Referrals page shows how many people have joined and how many have marked something.
  • Not available on school or team accounts, where credits come from a shared pool.
1.60.9

Turn off "finished marking" emails

A new toggle in your email preferences lets you stop the emails we send when marking, AI detection, or a criteria upload finishes.

Improvements

  • Find it under Email preferences in your account settings, next to Marketing emails.
  • It’s on by default — nothing changes unless you turn it off.
  • We’ll still email you if something fails, so you always know if a run didn’t finish.
  • Every one of these emails now links straight back to the toggle.
1.60.1

Teaching Assistant is now free

Ask the Teaching Assistant as many questions as you like about a mark — it no longer uses credits.

Improvements

  • Open the Teaching Assistant on any marked result and ask why a grade was awarded, without spending a credit.
  • Ask follow-up questions in the same conversation — there’s no per-message charge and no limit on how many you send.
  • Works the same way for individual teacher accounts and school accounts.
  • Everything else about the Teaching Assistant is unchanged — it still answers from your mark scheme and the exact marks awarded.
1.59.1

Upload your scheme of work as a Word document

Scheme-of-work uploads in Lesson Planning now accept .docx Word files — no need to export to PDF first.

Improvements

  • Upload your Word scheme of work directly and we’ll read it into the same weeks, units and lessons a PDF would produce.
  • Tables in your Word document (Topic, Objectives, Key Content, and so on) are mapped to the right fields automatically.
  • Works the same way for individual teacher accounts and school accounts.
  • For a heavily formatted scheme, exporting to PDF first may preserve the layout slightly better.