The article proposes a solution to the problem of goal-setting from the standpoint of activity and competency-based approaches. Concrete formulations of the goals and objectives of the academic disciplines "Methodology of Teaching Natural Sciences" and the school course "Natural Sciences" are given. The choice of these disciplines to illustrate examples of the formulation of the learning goal is determined by their specificity. Since in the course of “Natural Sciences”, students should learn the initial concepts of natural sciences (biology, geography, ecology, human physiology, history of society, etc.), the proposed examples of the wording of the goals and objectives of science lessons will help, according to the authors, teachers and other specialists in the field of education to formulate, by analogy, the goals of disciplines from other areas of science. The specificity of the school course "Natural Sciences" determines the specifics of the theory and technology of teaching this discipline. The wordings of the goals and objectives of the course “Methods of Teaching Natural Sciences” proposed by the authors are developed in accordance with the goals and objectives of the school discipline “Natural Sciences” in compliance with the logic of presentation, a sufficient degree of validity and convincing conclusions, as well as taking into account the specifics of the subject and the didactic principle of continuity.