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One of the most successful ( in fact outstanding) schools I have ever inspected didn’t use SMART targets for children’s learning. They used SMAR targets. They weren’t time related. This was because they didn’t see learning targets as an aggregation of ‘things’ that would get children to the next level. Instead, they identified CRITICAL PATHWAYS for children. This was a system whereby staff identified the key area of learning that would help children to move on as either a reader, a writer or as a mathematician.
They found from experience, that although they could use SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-related) targets to set expectations for progress in numerical terms, this practice did not translate to learning targets. Instead, they identified key aspects of learning, that no matter how long it took to master, would be fundamental for children to move on.
Examples of critical pathways were:
Children sometimes had these targets for over a year, but teachers knew that without them, children wouldn’t really make progress. In the mean time, they carried on teaching the rest of the curriculum. However, guided sessions were used to specifically teach to these targets, and to give children feedback on how they were getting on. This is one of the best examples of personalised leaning I have seen - because it worked!