The present study examined the relationship between goal orientation, coping with school failure and school achievement. Two questionnaires. Goal Orientation (Niemivirta, 1996a) and The School Failure Coping Scale (Rijavec & Brdar, 1997), were administered to 1057 high school students (aged from 15 to 17 years). The first goal of this study was to explore whether students can be classified in groups according to their goal orientation. The results identified four clusters of students with different achievement profiles: learning oriented, work-avoidance oriented, both performance and learning oriented and both performance and work-avoidance oriented group. Learning oriented group used emotion-focused coping the least frequently while students with combined performance and work avoidance orientation used this kind of coping the most frequently. The second goal was to test the relationship between goal orientation patterns and the adoption of emotion-focused and problem-focused coping strategies, and academic achievement. It was hypothesized that goal orientation could predict school achievement directly and indirectly through coping strategies. Coping strategies were considered as mediators between goal orientation and school achievement. Path analysis demonstrated that direct effects of goal orientation on school achievement were not significant. The relationship between goal orientation and school achievement was mediated by coping strategies. (Contains 4 tables and 4 figures.)