How to Write IEP Goals Aligned to the Victorian Curriculum
How to Write IEP Goals Aligned to the Victorian Curriculum
A school sends home a draft IEP and it contains goals like "Jake will improve his reading skills" and "Lily will better manage her behaviour in class." These goals are useless. They can't be measured, can't be reviewed, and don't hold anyone accountable. When the end-of-term review comes around, there's no way to determine whether they were achieved — and the cycle repeats.
Writing effective IEP goals for Victorian government schools requires understanding a specific policy framework, not just general advice about goal-setting. This post covers how the DET expects IEP goals to be structured, how they must connect to the Victorian Curriculum, and what a well-formed goal actually looks like.
What DET Policy Requires
In Victoria, IEPs are mandatory for students receiving Disability Inclusion Tier 3 funding, students in out-of-home care, students in youth justice programs, and all Koorie students regardless of disability status. The Marrung: Aboriginal Education Plan 2016-2026 mandates individual plans for every Koorie student in a Victorian government school.
DET policy is explicit that goals in an IEP must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Agreed (by the SSG), Relevant to the Victorian Curriculum, and Time-bound. These aren't just general best practice — they're the documented standard against which an IEP can be assessed for compliance.
The IEP development process follows four stages: Assess (understand the student's strengths, barriers, and existing support data), Plan (set short- and long-term goals aligned to curriculum outcomes), Teach (document how adjustments and strategies will be implemented), and Monitor and Evaluate (review progress at least once per term). Goals are written in the Plan stage, but they only make sense in the context of the Assess stage — which means good IEP writing starts well before anyone picks up a pen.
The Victorian Curriculum Connection
Every short-term IEP goal for a Victorian government school student must link to a specific learning area within the Victorian Curriculum F-10. For students working significantly below year level, this means using the Towards Foundation Levels A-D — a set of pre-Foundation curriculum levels designed specifically for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Levels A through D correspond to progressively increasing levels of engagement with curriculum content, from sensory/emerging (Level A) through to functional participation in curriculum activities (Level D).
This curriculum alignment is what separates a Victorian IEP from a generic planner downloaded from Etsy (most of which are built around US law and have no relevance to what Victorian schools must document). When a goal is tagged to a specific curriculum code, the school can't later argue about whether the goal was achieved — the evidence standard is built into the curriculum itself.
The SMART Formula for Victorian IEPs
A functional SMART goal for a Victorian IEP follows this structure:
Given [the specific adjustment or condition], [student name] will [observable skill or behaviour] to [measurable standard] by [specific date], as measured by [evidence method].
Each component has a purpose. "Given" identifies the reasonable adjustment being provided — this is critical because it documents that the school is responsible for creating the condition under which the goal is achievable. The observable skill connects to a curriculum outcome. The measurable standard removes subjectivity. The specific date creates accountability. The evidence method describes how the teacher will demonstrate progress to the SSG.
Here's a concrete example of a well-formed Victorian IEP goal:
"Given a written word bank displayed on the desk and access to text-to-speech software, Minh will summarise the main idea of a Year 3 informational text in 3–4 written sentences with at least 80% accuracy on three separate occasions by the end of Term 2, as measured by weekly teacher observation records."
Compare this to the vague version: "Minh will improve reading comprehension." The first can be reviewed, reported on, and held to account. The second cannot.
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Common Red Flags in Draft IEPs
When a school presents a draft IEP for your review before the SSG meeting (you're entitled to see it before signing off), check for these problems:
Vague action verbs. Words like "improve," "develop," "work on," and "explore" can't be measured. Strong IEP verbs are observable: "will write," "will identify," "will demonstrate," "will complete."
No condition stated. A goal that lists what the student will do without specifying what adjustment the school is providing doesn't lock anyone in. The adjustment should be in the goal.
No assigned responsibility. A good IEP specifies who implements each adjustment — the classroom teacher, the integration aide, or the visiting teacher. Goals without assigned responsibility are goals without accountability.
No link to the Victorian Curriculum. If a goal can't be matched to a specific curriculum level or code, it's not properly anchored. Ask the teacher which curriculum standard this goal corresponds to.
Copied from last term. If an unmet goal reappears verbatim in the next IEP without modification, that's a sign the IEP process isn't functioning. Goals that weren't met should be reviewed, either modified with a new approach or discussed in terms of whether the goal itself was appropriate.
Preparing for an IEP Review Meeting
The DET recommends formal IEP reviews at least once per term. Before attending, review the current IEP and mark which goals you believe were achieved, which weren't, and which need modification. Bring any allied health reports that include new observations or recommendations — these should be translated directly into new IEP goals rather than left as general suggestions.
Ask the classroom teacher in advance what data they've collected on each goal. Under the Assess → Plan → Teach → Monitor framework, the teacher should have formative data from weekly observations or task completion records. If they don't have evidence of monitoring, that's worth raising at the meeting.
You can also prepare a short parent statement — a one-page summary of your child's current strengths, any emerging challenges at home, and specific adjustments you want to see in the next IEP. This gives the SSG something concrete to respond to rather than a blank slate.
Goals for Students Using the Towards Foundation Curriculum
For students working at Levels A through D, goal-writing requires additional care. The functional skills targeted at these levels often relate to daily living participation, communication, and self-regulation rather than academic output in the conventional sense. A Level A–B goal might focus on a student attending to a learning activity for a specified duration, or consistently indicating a preference between two choices. A Level C–D goal might target participation in a structured group task with specified adult prompting.
These goals still follow the SMART framework. The curriculum connection is to specific descriptors within the Towards Foundation guidelines, which are available from the VCAA.
The Victoria Disability Support Blueprint includes fill-in-the-blank IEP goal formulas built for the Victorian Curriculum framework, with examples across disability types — from ASD and ADHD through to intellectual disability and specific learning difficulties. It also includes a red flag checklist you can run through before signing any IEP.
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