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Personal Development

Personal Development

The personal development of the student is clearly paramount in the CP. This page introduces the theme for students to find their motivation, vision and 'buy-in' they need for their CP course and life beyond. Topics such as Setting expectations and Confidence building, as well as Stress management and specific focus on Careers, Pathways and Life Skills are coming soon. Ready made lessons, research and all clearly indicate learning objectives and multiple themes addressed.

Starting with the theme

Personal Development: starting the Student's learning journey

It's never easy starting a new course from either a student or a teacher perspective so jump in here with personal development. Get to know yourself and each other - and that goes for being a teacher as well as a student! This is the start of an amazing learning journey where you can build a wide array of skills to help navigate the highs and lows that life inevitably throws at us. The IB guide outlines the theme of Personal Development with 3 topics and 3 subtopics. Of course these are advisory and it is important to contextualise your PPS course from the start.

Explore further here

1.1 Self-awareness and Empathy

Is empathy a skill we can learn?Understanding empathy can be tricky - least of all differentiating it from sympathy. Through the work of neuro psychologists and academics, we explore its definition and...

1.2 Self-management strategies

Building resilience in social and emotional learningLet's talk growth mindset. How do we build confidence, independence, interpersonal skills and resilience in a variety of personal and professional situations...

1.3 Relationship management

What does relationship management involve?This is a key element of nurturing any personal and professional relationship. In the spirit of everything connecting, here we start by looking at the IB's Approaches...

Developing the course with staff and students

Preparing students for the future

The following exercise is good for staff CPD as well as smaller, more informal discussions. It also can be utilised by students throughout the PPS course to reflect on both their Career-Related Studies and DP subjects and the commonalities of key competencies being used. Whether you are starting out as a newly authorised CP school or have been running the programme for a long time, continual revision of your PPS course is needed to keep it current and heading towards complete concurrency of learning across the whole CP course as far as possible.

Michaela Horvathova at The Center for Curriculum Redesign produced a report, at the start of 2020, identifying key competencies needed by students for the future workplace and how well the DP and CP prepare students in these.

How does your course explore Knowledge, Skills, Character and Meta-Learning?

How do you explore in your course/s...?

   What we know and understand                                 How we use what we know
How we behave and engage in the world                 How we reflect and adapt

How does your course promote...? What is your understanding of?


Connections with ATL
Approaches to learning

The lesson plans and activities on this site can be delivered to include implicit and explicit reference to a range of Approaches to Teaching and Learning. The key to students being able to identify skills and use them in a range of situations is to teach the skill explicitly before incorporating it implicitly in a range of contexts.

Approaches to Learning: Self-management
Key skills area: Self-motivation, Mindfulness awareness, Emotional management

Introduction: How to shift your mindset and choose your future: Thinking routine 'I used to think ... Now I ...'

Step 1. Setting your vision: 'All about Me'

Step 2. Giving feedback ...

Step 3. Questions to delve deeper

Plenary: You must meet ...

Plenary: Understanding key capabilities

  Top Tip: Remember that 'less is more' when making the links to ATL.

  It can be a temptation to draw students' attention to the sheer number of ATL skills that they are accessing at any 
  particular time. You know within PPS that a topic will be exploring any one of the five themes even if your introduction is
  through explicit   focus on one; the same applies to ATL. Try isolating a specific skill and then:

Make explicit reference to it and establish prior learning and experience
Make it useful with ways to practice it so students can experience how it works
Make it transferrable by having moments to consider where they have used this skill before, how they are developing it and where it might be useful in the future.
Make it visible by have the students record and reflect upon the processes they have used.
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