Goal Planning Tools for School Age Children: Goal Plan Do Check

This product has been updated in 2022.

These planning tools have been designed to assist your school age child (middle school and high school) with their executive functioning skills.

The framework can be introduced as a traffic light system with the red associated with stop (or goal), the yellow light associated with think (or plan) and the green light associated with go (perform the activity). A "u-turn" feature has been included to assist your child to return to the beginning to check their progress. Students will need to be taught the components which correspond to each light.

The resource has been designed with alternate wording (ie. stop/goal, think/plan) to provide versatility for use. It may be important for your child to grasp "stop" for attention or focus with an emphasis on whole body listening. In this case the STOP THINK DO CHECK framework may be more suitable. For some children, the concept of goal setting is more familiar to them and therefore the GOAL PLAN DO CHECK framework may be more appropriate.

A small version of the STOP THINK DO CHECK and GOAL PLAN DO CHECK has been created. These smaller versions of the visual aids may be cut out and stuck on a desk or inside a workbook.

The worksheet pages provides a student the opportunity to focus on tasks and goals that they may be having difficulty achieving. A separate print out of the worksheet page should be used for each goal/task. The worksheet guides a student through the framework to plan (with the assistance of a parent, teacher or therapist) how these goals or tasks may be achieved.

The school goals are provided as a prompt for discussion with parents and teachers. These can be used to identify broad areas of need before measurable goals are written. The goal pages can be used in discussion with the student to determine priorities and to plan how they may be achieved.

The Cognitive Orientation to Occupational Performance (CO-OP) approach is an evidence based approach used by some occupational therapists. This resource may be used to support a Co-op approach though the GOAL PLAN DO CHECK pages.

If handwriting is difficult for a student, the worksheets may be discussed with them and completed by the adult working with them on executive functioning skills.

Executive functioning skills are important for classroom and school participation. It is hoped that these resources will provide some support towards your child's participation.