Personal Development Planning

Student Guide to Student Progress Files (SPF)
and Personal Development Planning (PDP)

Introduction

All students in Higher Education are now required to be involved with Personal Development Planning (PDP) and keep a Student Progress File (SPF). This is to enable you to clarify what and how you are learning, to help you to understand what you want to achieve and how to set about attaining your goals. This is about more than career planning and employability. It’s about you developing as an individual who has a sense of direction, the ability to communicate and interact with others and to think in an informed, reflective manner.

Faculty of Art & Design Framework

SPF/PDP will be organised in your programme in a way that supports you as an individual and builds on your specialist area of study. As part of PDP everyone will have an Individual Development Tutorial (IDT) at least once in each stage of their programme (for MA students an Individual Development Review will normally take place during the masters stage of the programme). Your IDT may be part of other personal or teaching tutorials, or it may be separate. There are three strands of PDP that feed into your IDT. Before you have an IDT you will need to have pulled together and reflected on:

1) Your ongoing reflective thinking. This is fundamental to your development and will include your personal reflections on:

• The subject studied
• How your practice/studies are developing
• Professional and cultural contexts that inform your practice/studies
• Your ability to extend your learning and understanding.

In most programmes this will involve you keeping a journal that will act as your SPF but in some programmes other forms of documenting and recording experience will be used.

2) Any written or verbal feedback that you have been given following assessments or tutorials. These programme-based commentaries should provide you with a clear indication of how well you are performing in relation to the standards required by the programme.

3) Your development of skills specific to your subject area (contextual/professional studies), as well as key skills (e.g. communication, information technology, numeracy & learning how to learn). These will be developed through units in your programme of study, through other resources made available by the University (e.g. Learning Support and the Careers Service) and through resources external to the University.

The agenda for your IDT and the content of your progress file (journal or equivalent) are your responsibility. They are not assessed in a conventional way but should be considered as a means of supporting and extending your development as an individual and enabling you to achieve your personal goals.