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Supporting children's development
Supporting children's development

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2.3 SMART targets

For goals to be achievable, you need to have clear expectations of how you want the children to behave and a plan of how to implement the agreed goal. One way of doing this is to use SMART targets. SMART targets will help you to think through and clarify plans and setting goals, and make it easier to know what has been achieved over time.

Make it SMART:

  • Specific: What exactly is the issue?
  • Measurable: What would be a good outcome?
  • Achievable: Is that possible? Yes (depending on the age of the child and the issues leading to the behaviour).
  • Realistic: Is it realistic to expect this outcome given the classroom set up? Are there changes that could be made to the environment to make the desired behaviour more likely?
  • Timely: When are you going to start?

And then add on an EA:

  • Explicit: Explain to the children what will happen from now on and what is expected.
  • Agreed: Get the children to agree. Does that sound OK to you? Are we going to do that?
  • Agree the reward.
(Adapted from Netmums, 2011)