Personal Development Planning is available to every University student in the UK. At Kent PDP is a student-led activity supported by academic departments. For more information see the PDP Keynote web pages

Aims and Background

Personal Development Planning is a structured and supported process for students to record, review, reflect and plan their learning.

PDP helps students to take charge of their learning, recognise their strengths and weaknesses and plan for their short term and long term future. Each discipline has its own approach to PDP which fits with its curriculum and the typical career paths for its graduates.

Key skills

There are 5 key skills identified in PDP that every graduate is expected to be able to demonstrate when they leave University these are:

Communication

• Publicity for a student society
• Writing letter to raise sponsorship
• Member of the staff/student committee
• Oral presentations
• Project reports
• Canvassing for elections
• Public speaking/ debating
• Talking to visiting 6th form students

Numeracy

• Treasurer of a student society
• Work experience involving money
• Negotiating prices for a social function
• Statistical analysis in course work

IT Skills

• Using e-mail to communicate
• Word processing reports and essays
• Producing publicity for student societies
• Using the WWW as a source of information

Learning to Learn

• Setting and meeting academic deadlines
• Prioritising workloads
• Organising a trip or social event
• Using learning logs to aid reflective practice
• Demonstrating and tutoring

Working With Others

• Membership of student committees
• Team sports
• Membership of orchestra, choir or band
• Sharing a flat successfully
• Staging a play or musical

For more Information on subject-specific key skill please visit here.