Personal Development Plan

The first task is to define your goals.

If you’re stuck, ask yourself the following questions:

where do you want to progress in your career?

what new skills and knowledge would make you like to obtain?

Once you’ve thought of your goals, consider prioritising them – trying not to tackle too many at once.

Be realistic with what you want to achieve, and remember that these goals can be anything from short-term to long-term, big or small.

Examples:

I want to become a Primary School Teacher.

I want to move up in my career as a youth worker and develop specialist skills in young people’s health.

Once you’ve decided on your main goals, you can reflect and consider your strengths.

What attributes do you already have that could help your goal be achieved?

Are there any transferrable skills?

You don’t have any direct experience in RSE, your strength can be anything from being passionate about RSE and young people, it could be a creative talent or a specialist interest in a particular area of RSE such as domestic abuse, LGBT, or women’s health. It could be excellent people skills or being able to take the lead on graphic design.

Identifying your strengths can also help with your next task, where you will explore potential areas for improvement.

For example, it might be that you have a range of experience working with children and young people (strength), but no qualifications to quantify your skills (weakness).

Examples:

I’m great at talking to people and understanding their needs and have a range of experience working with children and young people.

I write in my spare time and have a keen interest in creating learning materials for children.

Identify the main areas of your career or skills that will need improvement to be able to achieve the goals you set.

Connecting the area for development directly to your set objectives can be helpful in keeping you motivated.

Examples:

I lack the confidence required to be able to deliver a healthy relationships lesson. 

My understanding of sexual health is outdated and I will need more knowledge to be able to deliver to young people. 

Carry out some research and look at what you will need to achieve your goals, and what kind of skills, knowledge, or qualifications will help you overcome your key weaknesses. For example, if you want to become an RSE lead in a school but you have no teaching qualification, you’ll probably need to consider gaining a qualification by doing a teaching assistant course, or studying for a PGCE at University. RSE accreditations and qualifications can be gained, typically by self-funding a course. Courses are limited but looking online can help, for example ACET’s Esteem course: https://www.acet-uk.com/esteem.  Alternatively, it could be that you just need to gain some practical, hands-on experience in the area you’d like to progress in and could like at shadowing and volunteering opportunities.   Examples: I will need to gain a professional teaching qualification.  I will need to be able to demonstrate work experience in youth work or relationships, sex education field before I can progress further. 

By identifying all of the above, you should now be ready to set the specific actions you will take to work towards achieving your goals.

Your actions should focus on your weaknesses and areas of improvement, and what skills you will need to go ahead with fulfilling your ambitions.

Examples:

Study a teaching course. 

Gain voluntary experience in RSE.

Setting a deadline for each of your goals will give you a target to reach for.

Be realistic with your timeframes, and take into account how long each individual plan of action will take.

You should also consider the potential obstacles that could delay you along the way, because things may not always run as smoothly as you hope.

Examples:

The course will take me 12 months to complete. 

I need to gain work experience before the end of July when schools close for summer.

Finally, always track your development.

Not only does this help to showcase where you’ve improved (which will boost your confidence and motivation), it also shows you what areas you are excelling in, and where you might need more work.

By recognising the obstacles, you’ll be able to put in place new actions or alter your current ones in a way that better fits in with your main goals.