Templates and resources for personal development

Successful personal and professional development is dependent on it being user-friendly and easy to apply. The range of learning approaches is vast, with activities covering the whole spectrum of learning from on-the-job development, formal programmes and qualifications to informal opportunities and learning through experience.

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Your personal development plan

Your personal development plan should include:

  • clear time periods for your goals
  • where do you want to be at the end of this time period?
  • what do you want to be doing at the end of this time period?
  • what do you want/need to learn and why?
  • what will you do to achieve this?
  • what resources and support will you need?
  • what will success look like for you?
  • target dates for the review and completion of your development goals
Download a template personal development plan [PDF]

Your CPD learning log

Recording the nature of a piece of continuing professional development training helps cement that learning, and gives you a portfolio of evidence of your learning for future employers. Your CPD learning can be recorded in different ways, but one way is via a learning log. A good learning log should include:

  • dates of training or intervention
  • activity and type of learning, i.e. what you did
  • evidence, i.e. how was it recorded
  • learning outcomes, i.e. what you learnt
  • links to competences demonstrated by this learning, i.e. how you put it into practice
  • time and duration of the training, e.g. in hours or days
  • next steps: further learning needed or planned
  • plans for implementation of the learning in your professional life
  • evaluation: how helpful was the learning to achieving your goal
  • how could the learning activity be improved?
Download a template learning log [PDF]