Browse help docs
Setting a learning goal and closing it
A goal is one sentence a child can act on, attached to one named student. Three people can see it and only two can change it — this is who does what, and the one detail that decides whether the goal reaches the child at all.
For Teachers, students and families · reviewed 2 September 2026
The 1 points where someone must decide
Everything else can be worked on in any order. These cannot move without a person.
- CompletionOngoing → Completed
Write the goal against a named student
/teacher/goals
Mrs. Johnson
Teacher
Student goals · ongoing
One sentence, one named child
Aanya Sharma
Use evidence from two sources in oral presentations · PYP4A
Diego Alvarez
Ask one clarifying question in each lesson · PYP4A
The goal is attached to the student by name. A name the roster does not hold reaches nobody.
Only staff create goals. A teacher, or leadership, writes the goal against a student name, a class and a due date — and the sentence is the whole feature, so it is worth writing something a child could act on this week rather than a paraphrase of a report comment.
The student is matched by name rather than picked from a list, which is the one place this module will quietly disappoint you. A goal written against a spelling the roster does not carry is saved, appears on the teacher's own tab, and never reaches the child or the family.
- Student name, goal title, class and due date.
- Teachers, leadership and admin can create; students and families cannot.
- Ongoing and completed are separate tabs, not a filter on one list.
The student sees it and works on it
/student/goals
Mrs. Johnson
Teacher
My learning goals
What is left, and what is done
Use evidence from two sources in oral presentations
PYP4A
Read for twenty minutes, four nights a week
PYP4A
Mark done is the only control on this screen, and status is the only field the server will take from a student.
A student sees their own goals and nothing else, with the due date until the goal is closed and a completed badge afterwards. The scoping is applied when the rows are read, so it holds whatever the browser asks for.
The only thing a student can do is mark a goal done. That is not a restraint imposed by the screen — status is the only field the server will accept from a student, so the same limit applies to a request made any other way.
Close it — from either side
/teacher/goals · /student/goals
Mrs. Johnson
Teacher
Completed
Either the child or the teacher can close it
Aanya Sharma
Use evidence from two sources · marked done by the student
Diego Alvarez
Ask one clarifying question · closed by the teacher
Ongoing
14
Completed
31
Completed is reversible. A goal closed early can be set back to ongoing by a teacher.
A goal is closed either by the student marking it done or by a teacher closing it, and both land in the same place. Letting the child close their own goal is the point of the module — a goal somebody else declares finished is a report comment with extra steps.
A teacher can move a goal back to ongoing, so closing it early is a correctable mistake rather than a permanent one.
Gate · Completion
Ongoing → Completed
A student may cross this line for their own goal and no other. Tenant scoping alone was not enough here — it once allowed a student to mark another child's goal done — so the server now confirms the goal belongs to a student the caller may act for. A goal outside that scope answers not found rather than forbidden, which keeps goal ids from confirming that a record exists.
Families read the goal, and only read it
/parent/goals
Mrs. Johnson
Teacher
Learning goals · family view
Read-only in the screen and in the server
Use evidence from two sources in oral presentations
PYP4A
Read for twenty minutes, four nights a week
PYP4A
There is no control to press, and a request sent without one is refused by role rather than ignored.
Families see their own child's goals with the same due dates and completion the child sees. There is nothing to press, and that is enforced twice: the screen carries no control, and the role is absent from the list of roles permitted to change a goal at all.
This is deliberate rather than an oversight. A goal a parent can close is no longer a record of what the child did.
Who can approve what
Designations are assigned in IB roles and are separate from the account role somebody signs in with.
| Designation | Sees | Approves |
|---|---|---|
| Teacher | Goals for the students they teach | Creating, editing the wording, due date and class, and closing |
| Leadership and admin | The whole school | The same as a teacher |
| Student | Their own goals | Marking their own goal done — status and nothing else |
| Family | Their own child's goals | Nothing |
If something looks empty
A goal you set never reached the student
The student name on the goal has to match the roster. Matching ignores case and surrounding spaces but nothing else, so a middle name, an initial or an alternative spelling produces a goal that is saved, visible to you, and invisible to the child and the family.
A family cannot see a goal the student can
The same name matching decides both, but a family also has to be linked to that child as a guardian. Check the link before re-typing the goal.
A student was told a goal does not exist when marking it done
The goal belongs to another student. The server answers not found rather than forbidden on purpose, so that a goal id cannot be used to confirm a record exists.
A parent asks to edit the wording
Families are read-only for goals by role, not by screen — there is no route that would accept the change. Ask the teacher who set it.
A completed goal needs reopening
A teacher can set it back to ongoing. Students can only move a goal to completed, not out of it.
Still stuck?
Bring the unit you are working on. Thirty minutes with someone who has taught the programme.