TARGETS

"Target setting can be the most demotivational activity a learner can undertake"

The key issues here have to be:

• WHO is setting the target?
• WHAT is their agenda?
• WHO owns the outcome?
• HOW is the target made REAL?
• HOW is the written target used to identify needs and motivate development?

Targets need to be stated in SENSORY terms, relate directly to clearly identified goals and consider the changes that achieving them will produce. They need to be OWNED and treated as signposts for development and not ends in themselves.

As part of the SMARTER not HARDER programme (which won an Innovation Award from the University of the First Age) the whole target setting process was broken down into key activities which encouraged pupils to take ownership of personal and academic targets.

Key tools in this process included:-

A reflection of personal STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES,  OPPORTUNITIES and THREATS. This process, familiar to many business people as a SWOT analysis was adapted and used in an educational context.

Many educators are familiar with the SMART target framework but this is not overly effective as it does not fully meet all of the key issues listed above.

True targets need to be SIMPLE statements of outcome which are MEASURABLE and set within a TIME frame... but it is the ACHIEVABLE and REALISTIC aspects of this particular frame that create some of the key issues as far as the SMARTER no HARDER programme was concerned.

For reasons that are described in the SMARTER not HARDER programme the most powerful framework for target setting is:-