Target Setting
Literacy and numeracy targets for primary schools leavers and targets for performance at GCSE and A level have been set for post-primary schools for the year 2007 in the Northern Ireland Priorities and Budget for 2005 - 2008.
The Department's School Improvement Programme is aimed at helping schools improve their performance and raising standards generally. The progress being made against end of key stage assessment tagets is monitoried on an ongoing basis.
Standards have steadily improved in the primary sector in recent years as measured by end of key stage 2 assessment. In the post-primary sector there is also evidence of improvement at key stage 3; however the figures in individual years may be at variance with the overall trend.
The Northern Ireland targets will continue to be reviewed. on an ongoing basis.
The setting of targets at individual school level, in the context of their development plans, is an important part of the strategy to raise standards and improve school performance. The Department has introduced School Development Planning legislation requiring all schools in Northern Ireland to set their own targets in certain key indicators, and to monitor progress towards them. It is up to individual schools to set there own realistic but challenging targets, based on their current performance trends and plans for improvement.
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Target Setting: Guidance for Primary Schools PDF 851 KB
Target Setting: Guidance for Post-Primary Schools PDF 1.04 MB
All schools are provided annually with benchmarking data to enable them to compare their performance in assessments and in public examinations with schools in similar circumstances, in terms of enrolment bands and proportions of pupils with free school meals entitlement.
The following circular and its associated annexes contain the general context for school development planning and provides the benchmarking information for target setting.
School Development Planning & Target Setting Circular 2008/13 (English) PDF 85 KB
Primary & Post-primary Benchmarking Annexes (English) PDF 168 KB
School Development Planning & Target Setting Circular 2008/13 (Irish) PDF 85 KB
Primary & Post-primary Benchmarking Annexes (Irish) PDF 168 KB
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