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Key messages for institutions implementing the HE Progress File

  1. The new DfES Progress File materials are being used increasingly in schools and colleges to replace the former National Record of Achievement which is being phased out. The first cohort of 16-19 students who will have used Progress File in large numbers will enter HE in autumn 2004. Students already using Progress File in schools and colleges are used to reflecting on their learning and development and will regard it as natural to continue this in HE.

  2. Institutions’ approaches to handling the HE Transcript can benefit from
    • looking forward to how it will operate in relation to PDP
    • taking account of how both parts of the HE Progress File can support core developments in learning and teaching


  3. Progress File implementation seems to be enhanced where a team approach is taken across an institution and where individual members of the team have access to peer networks in other institutions.

  4. There are increasing requirements in the professions for reflective practice. The HE Progress File should be a vehicle for better preparing HE students to meet these demands.

  5. Conversely, the processes of CPD in the professions have much in common with PDP for undergraduates. This is so much the case that:
    • Undergraduate PDP may be easiest to implement in the first instance in disciplines linked to professional bodies, whose good practice in CPD will offer models and resources
    • All developers of PDP systems can learn from established and innovative practice in CPD which relates to core aspects such as:
      • The relation between learning in the workplace, informal self-directed learning, formal structured learning.
      • Career development skills
      • Mentoring
      • Achieving quality of engagement and support


  6. The value of considering the CPD perspective throws into stronger relief the importance of considering the employability perspective, more generally, when developing forms of PDP for undergraduates.

  7. Many organisations are now using the Internet to support CPD

  8. The Web developments for CPD developments produced in this project are of relevance to undergraduate curricula, especially in disciplines where professional requirements are driving changes.

See also: Documents and Presentations
See also: Email support list for HE Progress File implementers.

 
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