Goodhart’s Law states that when a measure becomes a target, it loses its effectiveness as a measure. The allegory of a nail factory illustrates this: when success is measured by the number of nails, the factory produces many unusable small nails; when measured by weight, it produces a few oversized ones.

In education, this principle warns that overemphasis on metrics, like test scores or rankings, can distort the true purpose of learning. Pupils and teachers focus on scoring well rather than understanding material, leading to practices like teaching to the test and grade inflation. As a result, genuine learning suffers because the metrics no longer reflect educational quality.

As school and middle leaders, our strategic focus should shift toward identifying and leveraging marginal gains—those small, consistent improvements across teaching practices, pupil engagement, and operational efficiency. Rather than being constrained by the opportunity costs of every decision, we should cultivate a culture of continuous improvement, where even minor enhancements can collectively lead to transformative outcomes for our schools.

One Size Fits None: The Art of Pretending Targets Work for Everyone

This brings me to the curious case and practice of target setting. Now, don’t get me wrong: when it comes to GCSEs, target setting has its place. With past papers, UMS scores, and a treasure trove of exemplars, we’re at least working with a semi-solid foundation. It’s not perfect, but it’s something. We can also supplement with NGRT, Progress Testing and CAT4/Yellis.

But when we look at KS3 – particularly Years 8 and 9 – suddenly we’re in the Wild West of data. Targets here often feel like they’ve been plucked from a hat at random, or worse, generated by a mystical algorithm that no one really understands but everyone nods along with. I’ve yet to see this done well, or with any measurable impact beyond giving teachers and HoDs more spreadsheets to squint at. There is also very little research or case studies based on KS3 target setting and impact. Then there is the practice of percentage grades and apportioning grades across a year group to give the appearance of standardisation. This muddies the water further and ought to be contested or at least debated at policy or system level.

The graphic below is an example of a model that can be observed in many schools –  often the topics or areas of study are not related or require different skills:

Target Overload: When KS3 Goals Become Mission Impossible

The example above is just as confusing for pupils as it is for parents and that adds yet another layer of explanation – most likely given during a parent teacher meeting – again, using precious time. Some will argue that target setting helps flag underachievement. And yes, there’s a grain of truth in that. But with surface level measures, what tends to happen is a flurry of reactive, standalone interventions—like academic whack-a-mole. A pupil underperforms across subjects, and we all scramble to find the root cause. Often, it’s something fundamental, like a low reading age or an undiagnosed learning need. But instead of addressing that, we hand them a shiny new target and hope for the best – how often do heads of departments get to sit down collectively and critically discuss underachievement and pupil attainment, across the curriculum?

KS3 Pupils Check Out Before They Even Settle In

Pupils are flung from the comfort of one teacher, one classroom, and one close-knit community into a whirlwind of accountability and accelerated learning. They race through KS3 with barely a moment to breathe – teachers included. The impact is especially stark for SEND and disadvantaged pupils, who are often left struggling to keep pace in a system that’s sprinting before they’ve even found their footing and school leaders are trying to catch up.

The current practice could be harmful to SEND, EAL and FSM pupils because it tends to highlight what we already know or might know, based on our professional judgement and qualitative data, but we continue to use target setting as a poor proxy for learning and assessment, instead of drilling down and identifying barriers. Another set of missed opportunities. Could the current practice be ONE of the reasons pupils enjoy school less when they transition to secondary? A recent TES article School engagement plummets in Year 8, research finds | Tes:

“School engagement plummets in Year 8, according to recent research. The commission – led by ImpactEd Group – tracked data from more than 100,000 children across England to explore how pupil engagement changed across the 2024-25 academic year. Separate studies warn that students’ enjoyment of lessons drops, and stress levels rise, after moving to secondary school.”

“The average school enjoyment score falls from around 6 among pupils in Year 7 to 3.8 for students in Year 8 and to 3.2 for those in Year 9, the study found. The report said the findings point towards Year 8, or transition, being “a key point when pupils’ enjoyment of school suffers a substantial decline”. “It found Year 8 students reported lower levels of enjoyment, trust, agency and safety between the autumn and spring of the first year of secondary school.”

Below is an illustration of how an end of year KS3 report might look like:

Where Targets Multiply and Teacher Hours Disappear

I still remember, early in my career, being told to simply add or subtract four percentage points from a pupil’s last score and voilà!—a target was born. I didn’t question it. Most of us didn’t. We followed the system because, well, everyone else was doing it and the data monster needed feeding, and nobody wanted to be that teacher in the room. Fast forward a few years, and the same ritual continues in some cases. One issue with educational reforms or practices, whether trendy or misguided, is their tendency to be adopted at scale, amplifying their effects across the whole system which is why we ought to view schools as large and delicately balanced ecosystems.

Below is an illustrative example of target setting en masse:

Who is monitoring these 27,000 targets and how is it a justifiable use of resources or management time, given the current climate? Is this efficient, effective and impactful use of teacher time? How many curriculum meetings are compromised as a result of monitoring targets? Are these targets moving the learning forward? Is there a better way? The truth is, we spend a lot of time, energy, and money generating data we don’t use.

If we’re really serious about reforming workload and improving outcomes, this might be one of those small, marginal gains worth pursuing: scrapping arbitrary targets in KS3, or at least in Years 8 and 9. It would allow for greater breathing room in KS3 for any new curriculum planning and it would shift the focus onto good formative assessment. Teachers could be having pedagogical conversations about misconceptions, teaching and learning or sharing successful interventions, instead of filling in endless reams of meaningless data.

Freedom to Flourish: Why KS3 Needs Fewer Targets and More Trust

So, what’s the alternative? How about this: instead of conjuring targets from thin air, we monitor, for example, reading age as a KS3 metric because it impacts all subjects. Everyone contributes, everyone adapts, and we review the data when pupils hit Year 10. That gives heads of departments a meaningful, actionable dataset to identify potential struggles before GCSEs begin—not halfway through the course when the panic button is already glowing red.

It’s time we started asking: what actually helps? Let’s give Years 8 and 9 a break from the GCSE-lite treadmill and protect them from becoming pre-exam pressure cookers. It’s time to ring-fence the ‘middle years’ and rethink the great educational cliff jump from primary to secondary. For example, Year 9 often feels like the forgotten ‘middle child’ of secondary school. Year 8 is the fresh start, Year 10 is the GCSE warm-up, and Year 9? It’s the blurry bit in between.

If our intake, demands, and contexts have evolved, then so must we. Transform ED NI 10 Point Plan offers some hope and optimism, and I am keen to see how this is implemented, but there are things we can do now that can tackle workload.

Daisy Christodoulou, in her TransformED School Leaders’ Conference presentation entitled ‘High Standards, Knowledge, Skills and Assessment’, refers to the importance of accurate shared meaning and the use of scaled or standardised scores, along with comparative judgement. She also refers to using MCQs and whole-class feedback. These are sensible, manageable and meaningful actions and approaches, and I hope this is explored further.

Enhancing the pupil experience and easing teacher workload isn’t optional—it’s essential if we are serious about reform and committed to retaining teachers and securing pupil engagement. After all, happy pupils make for happy teachers, and vice versa. It’s a two-way street, not a one-way system.

Recommended Reads:

‘KS3 is about keeping an eye on everybody: identifying struggling pupils as early as you can; set high expectations for ALL; make them want and try to learn.’

‘Data is there to guide improvement, not to drive it – there are multiple strands of enquiry – both qualitative and quantitative – that can improve standards. It must be useful, actionable information for the teacher.’

Dataproof Your School by Richard Selfridge and James Pembroke

‘The primary role of school leadership is to remove extraneous demands on teachers so they can focus on planning and teaching the very best curriculum.’

Intelligent Accountability – David Didau

‘Maybe an endless game of whack-a-mole is a better analogy, where leaders get increasingly exhausted as the hammer gets heavier and the moles quicker and more multitudinous.’

Beyond Belief – Ben Levinson Case Study – Edited by Andrew Morrish

TES Article: https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/early-career-teachers-struggled-workload-ecf-review

Teacher Wellbeing: https://x.com/tes/status/1928709326966845946?t=c-w2NFeZ_KRWUll27atpKg&s=19