DS' targets......Grrrr

[StarlightMcKenzie]

First one for maths:

• ‘Realise if you know how many you do not need to count’

Oh. Well it is the most coherent one so I was hoping I was just being stupid.

How about:

• ‘Using judgement to estimate’

I don't understand that one....

At least ds ones are nice and simple if not always measurable.....

I really don't know.

No wonder it has taken me forever for the school to give them to me. I'm guessing it is a weakness they don't want to share with parents.

Crikey

Use judgement to estimate is like some bloody awful cryptic crossword clue

not exactly SMART

No wonder it took so long to get them. Not exactly strong point.

Interestingly his communication targets ARE SMART.

did you find out yet what the first target meant?

Hi, I have having a huge problem trying to get dd school to make iep SMART. They just don't seem to get it and think it is even though there are no measurements on it. Can I ask starlight how you communication targets have been made smart. I love the maths target, I guess if you asked a teacher to explain how they are going to support using those targets they would not have a clue!

Not a brilliant target.

I think it means:

Mini-Star should begin to realise that if he knows how many objects there are (ie recognising the dots on dice) then he doesn't have to physically count them.

Use judgement to estimate is fairly transparent.

I see the school hasn't changed much since I had dealings with them years ago...

I didn't write the targets, so no idea why they are so brief. Dd's target list has bullet points, with paragraphs in an adjacent column to explain and provide examples.

Surely estimate using judgement is the nice way of saying "don't just guess"

I don't think targets are written for the children to understand (or even see,particularly). Dd's certainly aren't.

I had to absolutely insist on the targets. I have never been happy with Ds' IEPs but was always told not to worry about it because he has many other targets.

Eventually I insisted (and it took some effort) on these 'other' targets. I think the fact that they are never presented to parents or anyone means the school are never held to account for them and as such little more than 'in the head' of each subject teacher and depend on what they feel like teaching with the broad remit of the differentiated national curriculum.

I expect there has been no training in how to write them and quite possibly they have just been made up. It seemed to take an awful long time for the teachers to come up with 6 targets each and I've still only got numeracy, literacy and science.

One of the science ones is 'explore light and dark'. How is that a target?

So I guess they are not written for the children, they are most certainly not written for the parents, and currently I suspect they are not even written for the teachers.

They don't sound made up to me. They sound lifted directly from BSquared or similar. They are KS1 curriculum targets, from what I can see, there to be explored and expanded through direct learning.

Yep. Though parents not even involved in IEPs here.

Tbh, the school has helped Ds and there are some great things about it, but Ds needs to get on now and stop having low demands placed on him for the sake of his confidence or whatever reason they are planning to give me for his falling behind.

I'm not sure how much KS1 children can be included in setting and reviewing targets, tbh, Polter.

His literacy targets have been lifted directly from the B2. That's why though not SMART they do actually make sense.

The science and maths less so.

Haveacuppa, the communication targets aren't what I'd hold up as excellent but they are much better.

For example:

Ds to comment on the work of a peer, 4 times with adult prompting.
Ds to congratulate peer on winning a game of two players where Ds does not win 75% times.

That kind of thing.

I am fairly sure that a c ouple of years ago dd's curriculum targets were to explore light and dark. She had to investigate light sources, name various different ones, look at diurnal/nocturnal etc.

I am not surprised by your account of the school. dsd went there, and I think it was the worst thing that ever happened to her, education wise. It didn't help her confidence, left her overly-reliant on support staff, left her thinking if something was too hard she only had to 'give it a go' (right thinking, badly applied. dsd's version of 'too hard' includes anything which she has to think about. at all. so therefore everything was too hard, and never attempted because 'the teacher says it's ok if I can't manage it'), and tbh, she never recovered from that. to this day, dsd doing any kind of work involves her opening up the page, and then sitting back and waiting for instruction and help (ie someone else to do it for her).

Oh lordy, that's crap. Really really crap. I'm just writing my lot. I ask staff what they are doing for x child which is different for the peer group to help x child succeed and then work with them to get a sensible target that's meaningful to both parties and is likely to happen that includes all the strategies. Usually I'm involved which is easier so I can write targets for my bits.

Some places use a programme called IEP writer. I never have but I wonder if sometimes some duff ones are used with this. Not sure how it works. They are hard to write and actually their efficacy is only going to e as good as the staff involved and parental support, otherwise they are just a bit of paper. I've got to give our staffroom the good tidings that I'm going to e monitoring whether what is in place in the IEP is actually being delivered via observations otherwise, again, it's just empty promises.

Well Annual Review this week so we'll see...