Helping our students to set and achieve goals is such an important part of teaching. Having attainable goals is a great way for the kids in our care to take control of their learning journey and continuously improve in their learning. Not only this, but setting goals in other areas of their lives helps our students to improve personally and socially as well!
Goal Setting in the Classroom
There are two key elements to helping children learn how to set appropriate goals.
1. Teach students what makes a good goal.
Before students can set goals, they need a plan! For a goal to be appropriate, it needs to be SMART:
S – Specific. What, exactly, do they want to achieve?
M – Measurable. How will they know that they have achieved their goal?
A – Achieveable. Your students want to set goals that are challenging, but attainable. Is the outcome of the goal feasible?
R – Relevant. Does the goal reflect something that the student should be working towards?
T – Timely. What is the timeframe for achieving the goal?
Once your students understand how to create SMART goals, they’re ready to put their thoughts down on paper. For that they will need…
2. A super-cool goal setting template!
Getting students excited about their goals is easy when you have eye-catching goal setting templates. Not only this, but displaying your goal setting templates somewhere that they can be referred to again and again helps students achieve their goals even more quickly. And, it just so happens that we have just the thing.
Goal Setting Templates for the Classroom
The students in your class will LOVE our new worksheets – The Goal Setting Template (Mountain) and Goal Setting Template (Iceberg). These templates have been beautifully created by our designer Clayton McIntosh.
Each of these templates shows your students how easy it is to break big goals down into smaller, achievable points. Not only this, but they also come in colour, black and white and editable Microsoft Word versions to boot! So, your students can colour in their own template, or edit it themselves if they are learning from home.
Mountain Goal Setting Template
The Goals Setting Template (Mountain) is a wonderful visual representation of the journey students go along to achieve a goal.
Students can work with their teacher to establish three goals. These can either be accumulative goals, or goals that focus on three separate areas of their lives, for example, a learning, a social, and a behavioral goal.
Simply write a shortened version of each goal in the top section of the mountain, and then expand upon each goal on the bottom half of the page.
Another great feature of this worksheet is its ability to be a visual reminder while students are working. Simply fold the template in half, paste it in the rear cover of each students’ book, and then unfold the top half of the page so that it sticks out from the edge of the book while the students are working!
Iceberg Goal Setting Template
The Goals Setting Template (Iceberg) is perfect for students who need to see exactly what success criteria they need to tick off to achieve their goal. Our example of the goal “Successfully write a compound sentence.” includes success criteria such as including a capital letter, full stop, and two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction!
The brilliant thing about this template is that it helps students learn that for every goal there are a lot of elements lurking below the surface that need to be considered. Using goal setting templates that include space for success criteria is a great way for students to visualise each little piece of the puzzle to achieving their goal.
This template can be folded into thirds, pasted into the rear cover of each child’s book, and then unfolded to have the top third sticking out of the cover while the students work. What a great visual reminder of learning goals while students are learning!
On the search for more goal setting resources?
Make sure to check out our Goals and Feedback Classroom Management collection or take a look at the fun resources below!
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