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Canterbury Christ Church University - Case Study for the ILP Project

 

Aims and objectives
Overall the project sought to develop and enhance the processes and associated documentation for individual learning plans (ILPs). It had two interlinked aims. Firstly it aimed to evaluate and build on current provision to develop documentation, processes, activities and procedures to enable the ILP to be an active and positive agent in our Initial Teacher Education (ITE) post compulsory programmes.  Secondly, it aimed to examine and specifically develop the roles played by the various contributors to the process.

 

We aimed to pilot the use of an ILP which placed it at the heart of the learning experience on our programme.  The foundation of the ILP would be established through initial assessment of trainee need.  We wished to embed an ILP as the device for helping trainee teachers to manage the links between various diverse experiences (taught sessions and their own teaching for example); opportunities (for training and development); and the people involved in the ITE process (mentor, tutor and HR personnel).  Furthermore, we sought to explore how an ILP can become the basis for a form of `reflective practice’ rather than a burdensome bureaucratic chore, as can often be the case in trainees’ experiences of logging their achievement of professional standards.

 

Key idea

• "Through our project we wanted all personnel involved with the ITE  programme to ‘use’ the ILP in some way and we wanted it to be a central means by which trainees engaged with the core educational pedagogy of the programme. 

 

• We wished to explore the means by which the ILP might become one of the main means by which a coherent learning and development programme is established for trainee teachers, encompassing work with the ITE tutor, the mentor and the HR department."

 

Two FE colleges and the pre-service Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) programme were involved with the project. We worked primarily with a number of in-service trainees on the Certificate in Education programme as well as a number of full-time PGCE students and their mentors. One of the successes of the project proved to be its capacity to draw on a range of people and resources beyond the initial scope of the project. One of the lessons of the project was the identification of a need for a longer planning period in order to engage more fully with some of the target group, Human Resources in particular.

 

Our objectives were:

 

• to develop a rationale and ‘benchmarks’ for ILPs
• to establish the foundation for effective links between personal tutors, mentors and Human Resources personnel
• to produce a model process to pilot within at least two institutions
• to produce model documentation to pilot within at least two institutions.