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This Guideline is for those advising schools on the use of target setting within the process of school improvement.Target setting is an approach to raising educational standards by establishing specific measurable goals for improved pupil performance but, on its own, will not raise standards. What is required is a range of practical ideas and strategies which schools can adapt to their own circumstances in order to raise pupil attainment. Target setting is not new or novel but has always been central to effective teaching and learning. This guideline includes ideas which have been found to be successful in various schools, and which can be adopted as required. NAAIDT aims to share and disseminate effective practice and help its members to provide specific, measurable, appropriate, realistic and timely advice to schools. Target setting: Target getting will therefore be of interest to advisers, inspectors, consultants and others advising schools.In addition, heads of department in secondary schools will also find the contents helpful in their work with colleagues.
From September 1998, all schools have been required to set and later publish challenging targets for pupil achievement. Whilst the Governing Body is legally responsible for publishing the targets, their role is to provide a strategic view and act as the critical friend to the school. The school develops the targets using a range of data and information on pupils' prior attainment and will determine the targets for themselves.
Target setting is one element of a five-stage school improvement cycle.
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This is the first step towards improvement and encourages a school or department to look critically at current achievements. This will involve looking at performance data including examination results. It includes analysing pupil performance in various material focus areas and groupings and by gender. It also involves comparing the performance of pupils against national and local benchmarks.
Some questions for schools and heads of department:
 | How is our department currently performing? |
| Is work in some aspects of designing stronger than in others e.g. creating ideas, communication, etc? |
| Are some groups of pupils doing better than others? |
| How does our performance compare with previous years? |
Schools are data rich environments. Sometimes the problem is how to sort out the most useful data from the mass of test scores, levels and predicted grades available.
The information which is available includes:
| data about pupils' performance in end of key stage tests and in examinations |
| data about pupils' performance on standardised tests, e.g. in reading or verbal reasoning |
| data about pupils' attitudes to school (from surveys) and their attendance record |
| data about parents' and community attitudes to the school e.g. from an OFSTED report |
| data about how management is working within the school e.g. from an OFSTED report |
| evidence from pupil work sampling and internal moderation meetings. |
There is much more that could be listed. Schools generally collect more evidence than they find time to analyse, so we must be careful not to over-do it! On the other hand, no school can plan adequately and target changes effectively without knowing about its own strengths and weaknesses in areas like those listed above.
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The second step involves comparing current and previous results with those from similar schools. This allows for a better comparison to be made than with, say, national results or those from all schools in a LEA. However, it begs the question about what exactly is meant by the term 'similar'. Size, a range of socio-economic factors or pupils' prior attainment could determine school similarity. In practice, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) and OFSTED use pupil eligibility for free schools meals (fsm) as a means to cluster schools in the grouping of similar type. The examination results for all schools of similar type are analysed and tables published each year showing performance of schools by type and in percentile bands. The tables show results for end of Key Stage 3 tests in the core subjects and overall GCSE performance. As such, they are of limited use to D&T departments. In principle schools should aspire to get into the upper quartile of the appropriate band to match the performance of schools of similar type. D&T departments have a major part to play in this overall whole school aim.
In the future, tables of school performance will evolve to include a comparison of a school's average performance at GCSE with the average Key Stage 3 levels for the same pupils. This will produce a measure of progress. Schools will be able to use these to both evaluate current performance and also to predict future achievement of pupils in GCSE examinations.
Many LEAs produce additional data related to factors other than FSM and may produce more subject specific data. GCSE residual scores, showing performance in D&T examinations against those achieved by the same pupils in their other subjects are more valuable and provide a good starting point for further work. QCA has also published data showing the progress pupils make in Key Stage 4 based on an aggregated Year 9 test score in English, mathematics and science and GCSE D&T grades. This is important information for the head of department as it includes chances graphs which can be used to predict performance.
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Using the information from stages 1 and 2 of the 5-stage cycle, schools can set realistic and challenging targets. These should be based on a school's previous performance and that of similar schools. What target is set will depend on the school's starting point. Schools are required to set overall targets for GCSE performance but may also choose to set others related to curriculum areas or pupils' development and attitudes (e.g. attendance). School targets should be based on:
| school-based data, including test scores and benchmark information (PANDAs) |
| LEA comparative data |
| information on the rate of improvement needed to achieve national expectations or targets |
| most recent inspection evidence |
| predictions, including forecast grades or levels and aspirations. |
Some questions for schools and heads of department:
| Do we need to revise any existing targets? |
| Are our targets D&T specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-related? |
| Are our targets sufficiently challenging |
| Do our targets include clear outcomes and identify processes? |
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Action planning is the fourth stage of the cycle and perhaps the hardest. It involves more detailed planning to meet the targets set out. Targets fall into two main groups process targets and outcome targets. If 'outcome' targets are set, the success criteria tend to be written into the target: e.g. 30% of pupils will achieve Level 5. With 'process' targets, however, often the success criteria need to be spelt out specifically. Examples of process and outcome targets are:
| Process targets: | Outcome targets: | ||
| write a new policy on assessment | | improve by 8 per cent the percentage of pupils reaching level 6 in D&T at end of Y9. |
| re-write job descriptions | | improve pupils' average GCSE score by X points |
| produce guidance on behaviour | | improved pupil motivation including fewer withdrawals |
| produce a new scheme of work | ||
| install new food technology equipment | ||
Some questions for schools and heads of department:
| Who will do what and by when? |
| What will success look like? |
| Who will evaluate our performance? |
| What support will be needed? |
| Have we identified milestones along the way to help us to monitor progress? |
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The target setting cycle needs to proceed into taking action. If all of the performance data collection and analysis, the benchmarking, the target setting and the action planning take up ten months of the year and leave just two months for ACTION, then the cycle has failed. Here are some possible actions.
Strategies which have produced gains at Key Stage 4
| sharing effective practice | | developing a coherent 5-year course |
| better D&T project management | | extra tuition, study support and clubs |
| reviewing D&T schemes of work | | more focused and supportive teacher appraisal |
| raising pace in lessons and focusing better on what pupils need | | better monitoring and recovery systems |
| improving the deployment of teachers | | enhancing pupils' study skills |
| results-focused tutoring/mentoring | | improving continuity and cross phase liaison |
| raising expectations | | provision of better quality books and resources |
| making lesson materials more accessible | | improved planning across the key stage |
| regular assessment and review | | ensuring differentiation |
| re-grouping pupils | | increased use of ICT to support D&T |
| systematic pupil tracking |
There is no single action which schools can take to raise standards. It will be a combination of actions, matched to a close analysis of each school's needs which produces results.
Some questions for schools and heads of department:
| Are we achieving our targets? |
| Were appropriate resources available? |
| If the targets will not be met, how can we do better next year? |
| How did our targets match with predictions? |
The management task is to handle all the preparation and planning stages professionally without retarding active progress designed to make gains. In a dynamic system a school may well wish to revise its targets more regularly than once a year - because monitoring is showing better than expected progress so far. With experience, the target-setting cycle should become more and more straightforward to negotiate - just as development planning has itself become more embedded within schools.
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Schools can draw on a range of external support to assist with the school improvement and target setting process. The role of the LEA will be to help schools to evaluate their own performance and provide comparative statistics. These will relate to local and national targets and performance. The quantity of statistical analyses available will vary and it is quite difficult to achieve a satisfactory balance between too much, which leads to confusion, and too little, which provides insufficient data to be of any real use above and beyond that already available in school PANDAs. Some of the most useful data are detailed analyses of GCSE results over time and pupil level progress scores.
Given sufficient resources, LEAs can go further and provide an analysis of GCSE residual scores in Y10 and the start of Y11 based on each school's predicted grades. This requires schools to adopt similar approaches to determining predicted grades, based on current levels of work rather than aspirations. All this work will take place within the context of the LEA's Educational Development Plan (EDP) which sets out its priorities and targets.
An effective LEA will: | Challenge and support schools to raise standards in D&T and act as a voice for parents |
| Provide clear performance data so that it can be used by schools |
| Provide focussed support to schools which are under-performing |
| Share effective practice within and across schools |
| Work with the DfEE and other LEAs to help celebrate and spread best practice in D&T. |
| Support continuity and liaison through work with partner schools across phases |
| Produce and disseminate support materials for D&T |
| Provide and advise on INSET and continuous professional development |
| Provide strong links to national agencies including DfEE, QCA, DATA and NAAIDT. |
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In all discussions on target setting, the distinction between aspiration and prediction is important. A good target is based on a prediction of performance plus a degree of challenge. The level of challenge will be a matter for teachers, heads of department, headteachers, governors and the LEA. Equally a D&T department must analyse what holds a pupil back, let them in on the secret and adapt teaching styles and approaches as required.
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| From Targets to Action | (1997) DfEE |
| Setting Targets to Raise Standards: A Survey of Good Practice | (1996) DfEE/OFSTED |
| Circular 11/98 Target Setting in Schools | (1998) DfEE |
| Excellence in Schools | (1997) HMSO |
| D&T: Quality through Progression | (1998) NAAIDT |
| School Evaluation Matters | (1998) OFSTED |
| Raising Standards in D&T : Monitoring through Assessment | (1998) NAAIDT |
| Supporting the Target Setting Process. Guidance for pupils with SEN | (1998) DfEE |
| The Standards Web Site | www.standards.dfee.gov.uk/ |
| The NAAIDT Web Site | www.naaidt.org.uk |
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© NAAIDT September 1999
