Education (Target-Setting in Schools) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations, made under Article 11(1) of the Education (Northern Ireland) Order 1998, place a duty on the Board of Governors of every grant-aided school except:

(a) a nursery school;

(b) a school attended wholly by pupils in the first three years of compulsory education;

(c) a school specially organised to make special provision for pupils with special educational needs

to set targets for the overall performance of pupils at the school.

Regulation 5 prescribes the measures of performance in relation to which targets are to be set. In the case of a primary school the measures relate to the performance of pupils in statutory assessments and are the proportion of pupils at the end of the first key stage achieving Level 2 or above of the Northern Ireland Curriculum and achieving Level 3 or above of the Northern Ireland Curriculum, and the proportion of pupils at the end of the second key stage achieving Level 4 or above of the Northern Ireland Curriculum and Level 5 or above of the Northern Ireland Curriculum (Schedule 1).

In the case of a secondary school the measures relate to performance in statutory assessments and in public examinations. In all secondary schools measures in relation to assessment are the proportion of pupils at the end of the third key stage achieving Level 5 or above of the Northern Ireland Curriculum and achieving Level 6 or above of the Northern Ireland Curriculum.

In relation to examination performance the measures are the proportions of Year 12 pupils in the school which should be achieving specified numbers of GCSEs or equivalent vocational qualifications and the proportions of Year 14 pupils which should be achieving specified numbers of GCE A levels or equivalent vocational qualifications (Schedule 2).