Target Setting, Policy Pathology and Student Perspectives: learning to labour in new times

The paper engages with target setting, one of the government's key priorities, from the standpoint, not of teachers, policy makers, parents or academics, but rather from the perspective of the very people who are the intended beneficiaries of policy, the students themselves. It challenges the dominance, not only of a particular approach to target setting, but also some of the fundamental assumptions on which current New Labour policy seems to be based.