Step 3 What more should aim to achieve?

Stage 3 - Schools need to set themselves clear and measurable targets.

Setting targets for improved pupil performance is crucial in the school self improvement cycle. Targets drive school improvement and provide impetus to challenge complacency. This is at the heart of the Government’s current legislation requiring all schools to set targets for pupils aged 11 and 16. More detailed advice on statutory target setting can be found in DfEE circular 11/98, Target setting in schools.

The statutory targets apply to all schools.  To be effective, targets for school improvement, statutory or otherwise, need to be SMART targets. This means they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable and Realistic, and set against an appropriate Timescale.

Analysing pupil performance as part of the annual cycle of school improvement enables teachers to identify specific areas of work in the school which could be improved. For example, analysis may reveal that pupils, or groups of pupils, in the school make better gains in communicating than early number skills, in which case the teaching of early number skills needs to be targeted for improvement. Through professional discussions and the sharing of judgements about the effectiveness of current teaching practices in the school, the target can be refined to identify more specifically the particular elements of mathematics teaching for improvement.

The first two steps of the school improvement cycle explained the importance of having appropriate measures for pupil and school performance. SMART targets will be measurable, and reflect the criteria used for measuring pupil performance.

Having identified and agreed the aspects of teaching and learning to target for improvement, teachers will need to make judgements about translating teaching practice into gains in pupils’ performances in the future. This involves deciding what more pupils will achieve when more successful teaching practices are implemented, over and above what they would be expected to achieve given current teaching practice. Those outcomes are the school’s measurable targets.

Achievable and realistic targets

Targets should be set that closely reflect their pupils’ performance priorities, as well as reflecting the national priorities of literacy and numeracy. For some schools this will mean setting targets for particular year groups. For other schools, it will mean setting targets for particular groups of pupils. It is important that school targets should focus on pupil learning. outcomes.

Timed targets

Having identified targets and how they will be measured, it is important to set realistic timescales for when the school will reach these targets. The timescales chosen will depend on the nature of the target, the needs of the pupils and what action is necessary for the school to take. The key to this element of target setting is to set a timescale that will provide the optimum effect in terms of pupils’ achievements. Targets should be set against timescales that both maintain impetus and are sufficient for new teaching strategies to take effect. Many schools find it helpful to use the same timescale for all targets.