It is sometimes to create Goals for my students

He, stop worrying about it. Writing SMART Goal is difficult. We all know that. It is frustating all of us. And not just the legislation part. It is much more than that. We want to do that is best for out students who have the most intense needs of them all.

What if I tell you that writing SMART Goals is easy. It is so easy that any Clerk could do it. You just follow a formula, meeting the S, the M, A, the R, and finally the T. Done.

I did that once too. In 2007 I immigrated from Europe to Canada, with more than 15 year of experience working with students with “special” learning and developmental needs. In fact, the first IEP I wrote in 2008 was flagged by the Ministry of Education because of the poor goals I had written.

I was used to writing goals that focused on the needs of my students. To get them to excel, develop to their true capacity. But I quickly learned that writing SMART Goals was more about legislation than about making kids strive.

Until I revolted and started to acknowledge the needs of the students on my caseload.

One year later, I got all of our School Division’s SMART Goals to meet the Government Legislation 100%. In fact, we got audited once more, but this time about why 100% of our goals seem to be meeting the needs of our students.

Then I started to understand the rules of the game, and I also understood that when you focus for 100%of the needs of your students, you cannot go wrong.

Let’s be honest here for a few seconds: Do you want your kids to do BOOST their development? And still comply with the rules? Just ask any parent, and they will want to see their child progress within the limita of what is possible. Sure, some parents want more – irrationally – and there is where your encouragement and tact helps them get refocused on what is realistic today, or within the coming school year.

So – and Toast Masters tell me not to use “So” – How can I create custom goals? Well, if you cannot find the exact goal in the SMART-R Online Goal Bank™, your student is either extremely exceptional, or – to be honest – you may have not visited all the corners of goal writing.