Updated on
September 17, 2026
How to Write Learning Objectives: 5 Steps and 12 Examples
Write a learning objective in five steps, with 12 worked examples by phase and subject, and a builder that drafts the objective, criteria and exit check.
It's Sunday evening, you have six lessons to plan for Monday, and that means six learning objectives to write before you touch the activities. Your school's book-look policy says every one gets copied into the exercise book by hand, so tomorrow's first ten minutes in every class are already spoken for.
The routine will look tidy on a learning walk. What you are less sure of is whether copying "By the end of this lesson, we will be able to explain the causes of the Great Fire of London" teaches anyone anything, or whether it is handwriting practice wearing the name of planning.
A learning objective is a plain statement of what a learner will know or be able to do by the end of a lesson or a short sequence of lessons, written so both of you can tell whether it has actually been reached. It is not the task: a poster about the water cycle is an activity, and what the poster proves about the water cycle is the learning. It is not the lesson title, which names the topic rather than the change in the learner. And it is not the success criteria, which describe how you will recognise that the objective has been met, not the objective itself.
Key Takeaways
- The fight is copying it into books, not having an aim. UK teachers keep the destination but reject the ritual: a full objective copied out by hand, every lesson, for a book look nobody asked for.
- Five steps turn a vague aim into something you can check. Name the learning, pick one thinking move, decide how you will see it, write three to five criteria in the learner's words, then plan where it lives.
- The evidence backs the mechanism, not a single number attached to a sentence on the board. Learners doing better when they know the goal and the gap is well supported; nobody has shown that the physical act of posting it changes anything.
- Whether you share it at the start depends on the subject, not a rule. History and literature often reveal it at the end so the lesson keeps its shape; some neurodivergent learners do better knowing the destination from the first minute.
What a learning objective is, and is not
A learning objective names the change you want in the learner, not the thing they will produce to show it. "Make a poster about the water cycle" describes an activity; "explain what drives each stage of the water cycle" describes the learning the poster is supposed to demonstrate, and only one of those sentences tells you what to look for.
The same confusion happens with the title and the success criteria. A title such as "The Great Fire of London" names the topic, not what learners will do with it. Success criteria, covered further down, describe how you will recognise the objective has been met; they are the evidence, not the target. Keep the three separate and the objective stops doing three jobs badly.
Write the objective, the criteria and the exit check in one go
Say who you teach, what they will do with the idea and how you will see it. Out comes a learning objective that names the learning rather than the task, three or four success criteria in the learners' own words, and a two-minute exit check that matches. Type your topic, or leave it blank to see a worked one.
Choose who, what and how, then write the objective.
Board or book?
An objective that is only on the board is decoration. It has to appear again in the model you show, in your feedback and in the exit check, or nobody will know whether it was met. Copying it into every book is the one place it does the least work.
Writing the objective, the criteria and the check for every lesson is the slow part. The Structural Learning app writes the objective with the lesson: pick the topic and the thinking move and the success criteria come out with the activity. Try it on a free account, no card needed.
The five steps for a learning objective you can actually check
Five moves turn a vague aim into an objective you and your class can both check by the end of the lesson.
1. Name the learning, not the task
Write the thing learners will know or be able to do, as a noun phrase: column addition with carrying, the causes of the Great Fire, not the activity that gets them there. A poster is a task; what the poster has to show is the learning.
Get this wrong and the objective reads "Make a fact file about volcanoes," and learners colour a template and copy two sentences with nothing you can check. Name the learning instead, "the layers of a volcano and what each one does," and you have a target: can this learner label the layers and say what each does, from memory, without the fact file in front of them.
2. Pick one thinking move
Decide what learners will do with the learning: remember it, explain it, use a method, compare it, judge it or create something with it. Choose one verb for the learning at hand, and if two moves genuinely fit, you have two objectives, not one bigger one.
"Understand and apply fractions" is really two objectives in one sentence: recalling how a fraction works, and using that method on a new problem. Split it and teach each to fluency in turn, and each exit check tells you something specific instead of a vague sense that fractions went okay.
3. Say how you will see it
Decide whether the evidence will be in talk, in writing, in a diagram or in a model, because that decision is also your exit check. If you cannot say how you will see the learning by the end of the lesson, the objective is a hope, not something you can act on.
"We are learning about the water cycle" gives you nothing to look for. "We will be able to put the stages of the water cycle in order and explain what drives each one" tells you exactly what to watch for: can this learner draw the cycle from memory in ninety seconds, arrows the right way round.
4. Write three to five criteria in their words
Each criterion starts with "I can" and names something you could actually watch for, with one bar for everyone and more support built in for some. Fewer than three criteria is a slogan; more than five is a mark scheme nobody will read before the bell goes.
"I understand fronted adverbials" cannot be watched for anything. Three criteria can: my sentence starts with a fronted adverbial, there is a comma after it, and it tells the reader when, where or how while the sentence still makes sense without it.
5. Plan where it lives
Decide where the objective does its work: on the board, in the model you show, in your feedback and in a two-minute exit check, and put it in the book only where a learner will genuinely re-read it. Copying it out by hand is handwriting practice, not learning, however tidy it looks.
If the objective lives only in the book, it does its job once, when it is copied, then sits unread until the next book look. If it lives in the model, "watch how I write the topic sentence, that is today's objective," and in your feedback, "you did the topic sentence, now fix the second criterion," it works three or four times in the same lesson instead of once.
Where it should not go in the book
UK teachers are not arguing about whether to have an aim. They are arguing about the secretarial version of one: the long date and full objective, copied out by hand, every lesson, so a book look has something to point at. Drop the demand for the copy and most of the argument disappears.
Plenty of classrooms have already settled on a compromise. "I think the date and the title of the lesson is important as the exercise book is a diary of learning," one primary teacher wrote (@MathsladyScott, 3 Sep 2026).
What teachers are saying · September 2026
The fight is the book, not the aim
Ask X about learning objectives and UK teachers answer about exercise books, and US teachers answer about walkthroughs. Their words, unedited.
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practitioner claim
RE: All children, writing the long date and lesson objective, every lesson, every day - or, cutting and sticking alternatives. I'm questioning purpose..
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reported practice
No purpose at all… it can take up to 10 minutes for some children…. Give the TA a (library type) date stamp
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objection
Writing lesson objectives on the board at the start of a lesson is like telling the punchline of a joke, before telling the joke
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practitioner claim
I actually think there’s some comfort in knowing where you’re going rather than it being a surprise all the time. Especially for ND students.
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practitioner claim
Learning intentions are primarily useful for teachers, for planning instruction. Success criteria are useful to both teachers and learners, for evaluating instruction.
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objection · United States
There is a belief that cluttering your whiteboard with standards, objectives, and jargon means you are prepared to teach for that day. This is nonsense.
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reported practice · United States
A chair just hit the wall, and the feedback on the walkthrough is about the learning objective not being visible in the top right corner.
What we did not find.
- Any UK teacher defending copying the objective into books
- WALT and WILF as a live argument, or an enquiry question offered as the replacement
- Any current inspection line that names board objectives
Every row is a post by a named account, quoted word for word, opened and checked before it was used. Engagement is reach, not evidence. Nothing here is a trial of the routine. Two grok-listen runs, 16 Sep 2026: UK 120 days, 60 searches, 31 evidenced posts; United States 120 days, 40 searches, 25 posts. Three of three sampled posts opened and matched.
The time cost is not trivial. Two minutes of copying, five lessons a day, comes to roughly thirty two hours a year, more than a week of lessons spent on handwriting rather than the Great Fire or the water cycle. A Year 1 teacher put it more bluntly: some classes "would only just finish copying the LO" inside a sixty minute lesson (@jon_hutchinson_, 16 Jul 2026).
How much of that cost is worth paying changes with age.
- Ages 4 to 7: say it, show it, act it. Do not make them write it; the objective lives in what you say, model and what learners make.
- Ages 7 to 11: a printed slip stuck in, or nothing. The board, the model and your feedback do the work the copied line was meant to do.
- Ages 11 to 14: a title and date in the book is enough. The objective goes on the board, into the worked example, into feedback and the exit check, and since learning rarely fits one lesson, write it for the sequence.
- Ages 14 to 18: the objective is a heading on notes, not a ritual. Put criteria beside the examiner's language; from here on, the criteria matter more than the objective.
Where this falls short, in teachers' words
Five objections come up more than any other, and only one of them is really about whether to have an aim at all.
Written into every book, every lesson
All children, writing the long date and lesson objective, every lesson, every day - or, cutting and sticking alternatives. I'm questioning purpose..
(@DavidNautilus1, 3 Sep 2026)
The objective lives on the board, the model and your feedback; the book only needs it where a learner will re-read it. Stamp a date, stick in a short title, or skip the book and spend the two minutes on the lesson instead.
Telling the punchline before the joke
Writing lesson objectives on the board at the start of a lesson is like telling the punchline of a joke, before telling the joke
(@EmathsUK, 13 Jun 2026)
The intention is written for the teacher's planning, not necessarily the first minute. History and literature often reveal the destination at the end so the story keeps its shape; some neurodivergent learners do better knowing it from the start, so this is a choice about the class, not a rule that always points one way.
Learning does not fit inside a lesson
Pinkett (2017) argues that worthwhile learning usually takes longer than a lesson to embed, so pinning one objective to one hour misrepresents it. Wiliam and Leahy (2015) make the same point from the assessment side: write the intention for the sequence of lessons it spans, and use success criteria, which can change lesson by lesson, to track progress towards it.
Must, should, could
Differentiating the objective into "must, should, could" tiers looks fair and often signals a ceiling before learners have started. Pinkett (2017) treats this as one of the clearest ways an objective does harm, telling some learners in writing that less is expected of them. One bar for everyone, with more support for those who need it, keeps the target the same.
The board is for the walkthrough, not the room
US: I watched the board become evidence for walkthroughs instead of a tool for the children in the room.
(@Acci_teacher, 2 Aug 2026)
Score whether learners can say what they are doing and why, not whether a sentence sits in the corner of the board. A learner who tells a visitor "we're comparing fractions today" has the objective; a poster nobody reads does not.
What teachers do with the objective instead
Most of what actually happens with a learning objective has nothing to do with what is written on the board. The table below is what teachers describe doing, with the research each routine leans on.
Reported practice · Lesson design · September 2026
What it looks like in the room
Nobody on X posts a well-written objective. They post what they do instead of copying one out, and what the board is for. The evidence column is the research, not the post.
| Routine, as teachers describe it | What you would notice | What the evidence says | Reported by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date and a short lesson title in the book, never the objectivereported practice | A title a learner would look back for when revising: Column addition, not We are learning to add three-digit numbers. The objective stays on the board and in the model. | Black and Wiliam (1998) found the gain in learners knowing the goal and the gap, which criteria and models supply. Nothing in the review depends on the sentence being copied. | @MathsladyScott 3 Sep 2026 · 8 likes, 890 views I think the date and the title of the lesson is important as the exercise book is a diary of learning Open the post |
| A library date stamp for the learners who take ten minutes to write the date and objectivereported practice | The teaching assistant stamps, the lesson starts on time, the learner who writes slowly writes the maths instead. | Time on task is the resource the copied line spends. Two minutes across five lessons a day is roughly a week of lessons a year, and that is for the quick writers. | @MakingSendse 3 Sep 2026 · 1 like, 715 views No purpose at all… it can take up to 10 minutes for some children…. Give the TA a (library type) date stamp Open the post |
| Clear learning goals in the plan, shared at the end of the lesson rather than the startreported practice | The lesson opens on a question or a source. The goal is named once learners have the vocabulary to understand it. | Wiliam and Leahy (2015) treat the intention as the teacher's planning tool; the learner needs the destination in a form they can use, which for some lessons arrives late. | @lcgeography 5 Jul 2026 · 1 like, 182 views I have clear learning goals for my lessons, and I often share them at the end. Open the post |
| Co-construct the objective with the class once the teaching is clearpractitioner claim | After the model, the class says what they were learning; the teacher writes their words, then adds anything they missed. | Clarke (2021) builds success criteria the same way, from a worked example the class pulls apart. Reported as a claim, not a trial. | @PieCorbett 14 Jun 2026 · 2 likes, 629 views If the teaching is clear then you can coconstruct this with the children, picking up on other things they feel they are learning Open the post |
| Two-word objectives on a flow of the day, the full target kept in the planreported practice · United States | Compare fractions. Add dialogue. Identify theme. A learner can say it to a visitor; the criteria live in the lesson. | Locke and Latham (2002) found specific goals beat vague ones; the finding is about the goal being specific, not about it being posted in full. US practice, elementary, with the principal's agreement. | @teachbk 3 Aug 2026 · 9 likes, 179 views "Compare fractions" "Add dialogue" "Identify theme" etc Open the post |
| Learners greet a visitor and say what the class is learningreported practice · United States | The evidence walks over to the observer. Nobody reads a corner of the board. | Hattie and Timperley (2007) put where am I going first among the feedback questions; a learner who can answer it has the objective, whatever the board says. US practice. | @jenteach13 17 Jun 2026 · 29 views when an adult walks in, they get up, greet the adult, and tell them what we are learning. That usually covers me for those days I don't write the objective on the board (which is the dumbest thing they make us do. The kids don't read those.) Open the post |
Every row is a post by a named account, quoted word for word, opened and checked before it was used. Engagement is reach, not evidence. Nothing here is a trial of the routine. Two grok-listen runs, 16 Sep 2026: UK 120 days, 60 searches, 31 evidenced posts; United States 120 days, 40 searches, 25 posts. Three of three sampled posts opened and matched.
One US teacher's workaround shows the idea in miniature: instead of a paragraph of standards, the objective becomes two words on the day's agenda, "Compare fractions," "Add dialogue," "Identify theme" (@teachbk, 3 Aug 2026). What made it stick lives in the lesson itself, in the model, the criteria on the board and the exit check, not in how many words are on the wall.
A UK primary lesson can run the same way without writing a sentence at all: the teacher says the aim aloud, models one worked example against it, and the exit check sits on the board as three short "I can" lines. A learner leaving that lesson can tell you what they were learning and how they will know they got it, whatever the board looked like on the way in.
Free · For Teachers
The Learning Objectives Sheet
Five steps to write an objective, twelve worked examples from ages 4 to 18 with their success criteria and exit checks, the criteria for every thinking move, and a straight answer on whether it has to go in the book. Two A4 pages.
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12 Worked Examples
Criteria By Move
Board Or Book
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Twelve worked examples by age and subject
The routine above works for any topic, but seeing it filled in against twelve real subjects and age groups is faster than building your own from scratch. Each example below gives you the objective, three to five criteria in the learner's words, and a one-line exit check you can run in the last two minutes of the lesson; use the sheet as written, or adapt the topic and keep the shape.
Ages 4 to 7
Example 1. Maths: counting in twos to 20
We are learning to count in twos to 20.
- I can count in twos from 0 to 20 out loud.
- I can carry on from any even number you give me.
- I can spot the mistake when the puppet counts wrong.
Exit check: Say it: count in twos to a partner, starting at 6. The partner listens for a skip.
Example 2. Science: the parts of a plant
We are learning to name the parts of a plant and say what each part does.
- I can point to the root, stem, leaf and flower.
- I can say one job for each part.
- I can build a plant from the parts and put them in the right places.
Exit check: Show me: hold up the part that drinks the water, then the part that makes the food.
Ages 7 to 11
Example 3. English: fronted adverbials
By the end of this lesson, we will be able to use fronted adverbials to show when or how something happens.
- My sentence starts with a fronted adverbial.
- There is a comma after it.
- It tells the reader when, where or how, and the sentence still makes sense without it.
Exit check: Write it: rewrite "The fox crept through the garden" with a fronted adverbial that says when.
Example 4. History: why the Great Fire of London spread
By the end of this lesson, we will be able to explain why the Great Fire of London spread so quickly.
- I can give three reasons: wooden houses, narrow streets, a strong wind.
- Every reason has a because.
- I can say which reason mattered most, and why.
Exit check: Draw it: three boxes, three causes, and an arrow to the one that mattered most.
Example 5. Maths: column addition with carrying
By the end of this lesson, we will be able to add two three-digit numbers with the column method, carrying when we need to.
- My digits line up in hundreds, tens and ones.
- I carry the ten and I write it where it belongs.
- I can spot a question where I need to carry twice.
Exit check: Write it: finish the worked example with one step missing, and say what that step does.
Example 6. Science: the water cycle
By the end of this lesson, we will be able to put the stages of the water cycle in order and explain what drives each one.
- I can put evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection in order.
- I can say what makes each stage happen: the sun, cooling, gravity.
- I can draw the cycle from memory with the arrows the right way round.
Exit check: Draw it: the cycle from memory on a whiteboard, in ninety seconds.
Ages 11 to 14
Example 7. English: how a writer creates tension
By the end of this sequence of lessons, learners will be able to analyse how a writer uses language to create tension, and compare two moments.
- I choose a short quotation and explain the effect of one word in it.
- I name the technique only when it helps the point.
- I link the effect to what the reader feels.
- I can compare two moments and say which is tenser, and why.
Exit check: Write it: one quotation, one word, one effect, on a slip.
Example 8. Science: photosynthesis as a chemical change
By the end of this sequence of lessons, learners will be able to explain photosynthesis as a chemical change, using the word equation.
- I can write the word equation with the inputs and outputs the right way round.
- I can explain where the light energy goes.
- I can explain why a plant kept in the dark loses mass.
- I can spot the idea that plants get food from the soil, and say why it is wrong.
Exit check: Write it: a hinge question with four options, each one a different misconception.
Example 9. Maths: sharing in a ratio
By the end of this sequence of lessons, learners will be able to share an amount in a given ratio and check the answer.
- I find the value of one part first.
- My parts add up to the original amount.
- I can do it when the ratio has three parts.
- I can explain the difference between a ratio and a fraction of the amount.
Exit check: Write it: finish the worked example with the missing step, and label it.
Ages 14 to 18
Example 10. History: the Treaty of Versailles and the Second World War
By the end of this sequence of lessons, learners will be able to evaluate how far the Treaty of Versailles caused the Second World War.
- I can state the criteria I judge by: how direct, how large, how long-lasting.
- I give evidence for at least two other causes.
- I can explain the strongest argument against my view.
- My conclusion answers how far, not just whether.
Exit check: Write it: one sentence of judgement and one piece of evidence, on a slip.
Example 11. Biology: temperature and enzyme activity
By the end of this sequence of lessons, learners will be able to explain how temperature changes the rate of an enzyme-controlled reaction.
- I can describe the shape of the graph and name the optimum.
- I can explain the rise with collisions and the fall with denaturing.
- I use active site and denature correctly, and never say killed.
- I can predict what happens to a named enzyme outside its optimum.
Exit check: Draw it: sketch the graph on a whiteboard and label the two halves.
Example 12. Design: a product for a client brief
By the end of this sequence of lessons, learners will be able to design a product for a client brief and justify every design choice against it.
- My design meets each line of the brief, and I can point to where.
- I made at least three deliberate choices and can say why.
- I improved a first version after feedback and recorded what changed.
Exit check: Show me: one choice in the design and the line of the brief it answers.
Intentions, objectives, outcomes, success criteria: which word
Four words get used almost interchangeably in staffrooms, and the difference matters more than the vocabulary argument suggests.
| Term | Who it is for | One example | When it spans more than a lesson |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learning intention | The teacher, for planning | "We are learning to compare two poems about war." | Usually spans a sequence of lessons on the same skill. |
| Objective | Teacher and learner, one lesson's target | "By the end of this lesson, we will be able to add two three-digit numbers with carrying." | Sometimes; more often written per lesson. |
| Outcome | What actually happened, checked afterwards | The finished piece of writing, or the score on the exit check. | Never; it is the result, not the plan. |
| Success criteria | The learner, to judge their own work | "I can explain why the common wrong answer is tempting." | Can change lesson by lesson while the intention stays the same. |
SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time bound) forces you to name a topic and a deadline, useful discipline against a vague aim like "understand fractions." Its weakness is "measurable": chasing a number tempts you back towards a task you can count, such as "complete ten questions," rather than the learning those questions were meant to reveal.
The ABCD model, audience, behaviour, condition, degree, which traces back to Mager (1962), forces you to name who is doing what, under what condition, and to what standard. Its trap is the same as SMART's: "behaviour" pulls towards an observable task rather than the thinking behind it, so a well-formed ABCD sentence can still describe a poster rather than what the poster was meant to prove.
Bloom's verbs and the trap of the verb list
Anderson and Krathwohl's (2001) revised taxonomy is useful as a check on the thinking move you have chosen, never as a menu to lift a verb from. Ask whether "analyse" genuinely describes what learners will do, rather than picking it because it sounds more rigorous than "explain."
"Understand" is the word most objectives lean on, and it is the one you cannot watch anyone do. "Understand the water cycle" gives you nothing to check; "explain what drives each stage of the water cycle" tells you exactly what to listen for.
Soderstrom and Bjork's (2015) review draws the sharper line underneath this: performance during the lesson, getting a worked example right while the teacher stands beside you, is not the same as learning, which is whether the thinking survives a week later without the prompt. An objective names the learning you want to last; the exit check only ever samples the performance in the room, so treat it as encouraging evidence, not proof.
A class that all correctly label the water cycle diagram while it is fresh on the board has demonstrated performance. Whether that is learning shows up a fortnight later, when the diagram is gone.
What the research says, and does not
Black and Wiliam (1998) found that learners improve when they know the goal they are working towards and the gap between where they are and that goal, visible through criteria, models and feedback, not through a sentence on a board.
Hattie and Timperley (2007) frame effective feedback as answering three questions, and the first, "where am I going," is exactly what an objective and its criteria are meant to answer. The criteria do the answering; the objective on its own only names the destination.
Locke and Latham (2002) show that specific goals beat a vague instruction to do your best, the strongest research case for writing a precise objective at all. Their finding is about specificity, not about the goal being written where a learner can see it, so it supports steps one and two of the routine above rather than the ritual of posting.
No study reviewed for this page shows that posting the sentence on the board, rather than a learner knowing the goal some other way, changes what they learn. Three commonly quoted effect sizes for teacher clarity disagree with each other by a wide margin, so none appears here; a number that cannot agree with itself is not evidence for anything specific enough to act on.
In the United States: targets, walkthroughs and the two-word board
US teachers describe a version of this same argument shaped by a pressure UK teachers rarely mention: the walkthrough. An observer expects a visible target or a verbalised objective, and the feedback afterwards is often about the board rather than the lesson.
A chair just hit the wall, and the feedback on the walkthrough is about the learning objective not being visible in the top right corner.
(@jenteach13, 7 Jun 2026)
One teacher pushes back on a new district initiative directly: There isn't a single peer reviewed study showing that writing objectives on the board has any impact on student outcomes.
(@chrlivestock, 7 Sep 2026) Another widely shared post makes the same point about clutter: There is a belief that cluttering your whiteboard with standards, objectives, and jargon means you are prepared to teach for that day. This is nonsense.
(@TolentinoTeach, 1 Aug 2026)
The two-word workaround from the classroom example above was agreed with admin as a compromise, not a defiance of policy (teachbk, 3 Aug 2026).
The posted objective fails hardest in three kinds of room. A discovery-based maths teacher was marked down for not posting one, because that would have given away what the lesson let learners find for themselves: Posting what they are discovering defeats the purpose.
(@Mr_JonesMath, 1 Aug 2026) A self-contained classroom teacher for learners with significant intellectual disabilities is still told to post and go through the same standards regardless (@mathers_georgia, 2 Aug 2026). A Spanish 1 teacher was told her objectives should be written in Spanish, for learners who do not yet read the language they are learning (@MrsMcKinley28, 2 Aug 2026).
Leaders still treat a posted target as the sign of a good room. One admin account reports seeing "hands-on science instruction and posted learning targets" on a walkthrough (@AdminLeadServe, 2 Sep 2026), and Teacher Clarity turns the same idea into a sentence: I am learning the order of operations so that I can use math properties to evaluate expressions!
(@DiggsLatham, 8 Sep 2026) That frame is useful for writing your own objective; it is not evidence that posting it changes what learners take away.
Pros and cons of sharing the objective at the start
| The case for | The case against | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| Orients learners who need the destination before they can settle, including some neurodivergent learners | Reveals the twist before a history or literature lesson has built to it | Reveal the destination at the end for enquiry lessons; check in sooner where a learner needs it |
| Gives a visitor a fast read on the lesson's intent | Turns the board into walkthrough evidence, not a tool for the class | Score whether learners can say what they are doing, not the board's corner |
| Lets you refer back to a shared aim across a sequence | Copying it into books costs real time for little return, especially for young or SEND learners | Keep the intention in the model and your feedback; book it only where a learner will re-read it |
| Structures a school's Teacher Clarity language into one sentence | Cluttering the board with standards and jargon is mistaken for being prepared | Keep the board to a short title or a two-word task |
Frequently asked questions
Are learning objectives necessary?
Some form of a target helps planning and helps you judge whether learners got what you intended. Whether it is written as a formal objective, spoken aloud, or built into the task is a choice, not a fixed requirement.
Should learners copy the objective into their books?
Only where they will genuinely re-read it. A date or a short title usually serves the book better than a copied sentence, and the objective does its real work on the board, in your model and in your feedback instead.
What is the difference between an objective and an outcome?
An objective is the target you plan towards. An outcome is what actually happened, checked against that target once the exit check is done.
How many success criteria should I write?
Three to five. Fewer reads as a slogan; more becomes a mark scheme nobody will read before the lesson moves on.
What about EYFS?
Say it, show it, act it. Do not ask early years children to write an objective; the aim lives in what you say, what you model and what they make.
What does Ofsted expect?
The inspection framework does not require a written objective on the board or in books, and does not name any particular method of sharing an aim. Treat any staffroom claim that it does as a school-level policy, not an inspection requirement.
Next lesson, try step one before anything else: write down the noun phrase for the learning itself, before you plan the task that will show it. The rest of the routine gets easier once that single line is right.
References
Anderson, L. W. and Krathwohl, D. R. (eds) (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing. Longman.
Black, P. and Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy and Practice, 5(1), 7 to 74. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969595980050102
Clarke, S. (2021). Unlocking Learning Intentions and Success Criteria. Corwin.
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