the school of
educational administration

Personal Development Plan

A personal development plan is a good way to evaluate your current skills and experience. It helps you to devise a goal or vision and then determine the skills that you could develop in order to achieve it. A personal development plan is not just about improving at work, it is about making changes and improvements in every aspect of your life.

A personal development plan is really quite simple, but it is amazing the difference it can make by encouraging you to examine your goals and how you are going to meet them.

Developing a Personal Development Plan

You can download a template for a Personal Development Plan here. You could either fill in the template or use it as a basis to develop your own plan.

The example we have provided is split into three main sections:

1. Long-term vision

How do you imagine your life in five years time? This can include anything that you want. The template is split into professional and personal aims. You should ask yourself questions such as:

• Do you envisage yourself in the same job in the next five years
• If so, what aspects of your job would you like to be different?
• If not, what job do you want to be doing? Will it be in Educational Administration or do you want a change of scene?
• What are your salary expectations?
• What changes do you envisage in your personal/family life?
• Do you want to be living in the same house/town?
• Is there something that you have always wanted to do i.e. learn a foreign language/parachute from a plane/ learn to paint watercolour paintings?

Even if your dreams and aspirations seem unattainable put them down. Firstly it is fun to have a day dream, and secondly it will give you a clearer picture of what you want from life. You only live once, and you never know what you might achieve! The only thing stopping you is YOU!!

2. Current Qualifications and Skills

List all of your current qualifications and skills. When listing skills consider what skills you have acquired in past jobs as well as your current job. It may help to list the tasks that you have to carry out at work and then look at what skills you need to use to achieve them. Just think - trying to calm down irate parents who are demanding to see the Head Teacher has paid off because now you have excellent communication and negotiating skills!!

Divide the skills into technical skills i.e. ability to use SIMS net, and personal skills i.e. assertiveness.

Not only is this constructive when determining your personal development plan, it is also a confidence boost because you realise exactly how much skill and experience is needed to do your job.

Action Plan

This is where you fill in the gaps between the skills that you have for where you are now and the skills that you need in order to reach your goals. In the template there is only one action plan, but you could have an action plan for each goal.

There is a start and end date to give your plan some structure and to give you something to aim for. It is also quite satisfying to tick off each goal as you achieve it.