---
name: success-criteria
description: Read this when a task needs a stated standard — feedback, peer assessment and self-assessment all fail silently without one. Use it when asked for learning objectives, lesson aims, WALT/WILF, success criteria, a rubric or mark scheme for learners, or a checklist for a task, and when feedback has nowhere to attach because no standard was ever shared. It produces a decontextualised learning intention, 3–5 learner-checkable criteria, and the exemplar activity that makes them mean anything.
---

# Learning intentions and success criteria

Wiliam's first key strategy, and the prerequisite for the other four. Sadler
(1989): a learner cannot close a gap they cannot perceive.

## What done looks like

```
LEARNING INTENTION
  We are learning to <transferable, observable verb phrase>.

CONTEXT (today's vehicle, not the learning)
  <the task>

SUCCESS CRITERIA  (3–5, learner-checkable, learner voice)
  □ …  □ …  □ …

HOW THESE GET SHARED  (the activity, not the handout)
  <e.g. rank three anonymised responses, co-construct from the ranking>

EXEMPLAR
  <a strong response, plus a weaker one to compare, annotated against the criteria>
```

## The two distinctions to get right

**Intention vs context.** The intention is the transferable learning; the context
is the vehicle. "To write a letter to the council about the car park" conflates
them; "to write persuasively for a specific audience" *in the context of* that
letter separates them. Learners who only meet the contextualised version encode
the context — they learn car-park letters, not persuasion, and don't transfer.

**Product vs process criteria.** Product: "your conclusion states which hypothesis
the data support." Process: "you checked each result against your prediction
before writing the conclusion." Novices usually need process criteria — product
criteria describe the destination without the route. Say which you wrote and why.

## Why exemplars matter more than wording

For anything with real quality in it, criteria are irreducibly vague. "Well
structured", "sophisticated analysis" mean nothing to a learner who can't yet do
it — they only become meaningful once you can already recognise the thing. This
is not fixable by better wording; more words make rubrics longer, not clearer.

So for extended writing, practical work, design, or oral work: deliver the rubric
asked for **and** the exemplar activity, and say the second matters more.
Comparison beats description — "which of these two is better and why?" is a far
easier judgement than rating one against a scale, and the criteria learners
generate that way are ones they can already apply.

## Constraints

- **3–5 criteria.** Twelve is a mark scheme, not success criteria.
- **Every criterion is one a learner could honestly self-check.** "Uses
  sophisticated vocabulary" fails. "Every claim I make is followed by evidence
  from the text" passes.
- **Observable verbs only.** Not "understand", "know about", "be aware of",
  "appreciate", "explore" — those name no observable.
- **No criterion restates the task** ("completes all questions", "writes two
  pages") or measures compliance, effort or presentation unless that is genuinely
  the learning.
- **No comparative language** in learner-facing criteria. "More sophisticated
  than" — than what? They can't check against a comparison they can't see.
- **Sharing means the learners have used them**, not received them. Specify the
  activity.

## Judgement calls

- **Should the criteria be shared at all?** For genuine problem-solving,
  investigation or design, telling learners the product criteria in advance tells
  them the answer. Share the *process* criteria up front and build the product
  criteria with the class afterwards from what they produced. Flag this rather
  than mechanically producing an up-front list.
- **Rubric or checklist?** Most teachers reach for an analytic grid where a
  checklist or a single-point rubric would serve better and cost less.
  `references/rubric-patterns.md` picks by situation and is honest about what each
  format costs.
- **Is the language actually the learners'?** Read it aloud as a learner of that
  age. Examiner language cannot be self-checked; keep the mark scheme separate.

## Failure modes

- **Objectives that are tasks.** "To complete the worksheet on ratios." The verb
  describes an activity, not a capability.
- **Criteria that are quantity.** "Write three paragraphs" measures nothing.
- **Rubric bloat.** Four bands × six strands = 24 cells nobody reads. Bands are for
  reporting; criteria are for working.
- **WALT/WILF theatre.** Writing the objective on the board, having learners copy
  it, never referring to it again — five minutes a lesson for nothing. If that's
  the practice, say so and propose the mid-lesson self-check instead.
- **Flattening creative work.** Where divergence is the point, constrain process
  and quality, not the product's shape, or you get thirty identical pieces.

## References

- `references/rubric-patterns.md` — checklist, single-point, analytic, comparative
  judgement, progression: which to use and what each costs.
- `references/exemplar-protocols.md` — the activities that make criteria land,
  with timings, plus how to source and anonymise exemplars.