Learning programmes and assessments

This reflective essay assessment completes the learning you began with the CPPE Stable angina learning programme. Access and gaining a pass will provide evidence that you have worked through the programme/guide, have reflected on your personal practice and applied the learning to improve your practice and patient outcomes. The essay will contribute to your own personal development plan, be recorded in your My CPPE record and will enable you to complete a CPD entry on the learning. It may also provide evidence for achieving competencies in the RPS Foundation or Advanced Pharmacy Frameworks and the Declaration of Competence system if your learning is linked to provision of a pharmacy service.

Prepare to pass

The essay questions will ask you to write a narrative; a story that describes your personal thoughts on that learning topic and how you have used it to change the way that you work. We are looking for a personal account which describes the reality of your own working environment.

When we review your essays there are some key things which we will be looking for in your reflections. It may help to ask yourself these questions as you write:

• Have you provided some evidence that you have grasped the key content of our learning? This could be one or two specific elements of the learning which you feel has had an impact on your practice.
• What does this learning mean to you in your personal practice?
• How have you applied the learning or plan to apply it to make a positive change to your practice?  Tell us what is different for you now or what you intend to do as a result of this learning
• Have you considered the patient's perspective and their experience of your practice?
• How will (or has) this change benefit(ed) you, your team and the people who use your pharmacy services?
• How will you know that the change has been a success?

We will not be marking your literary skills, but we will be looking for something that makes sense and has a good narrative flow. In some circumstances, we may return the essay to you unmarked. This will be when the essay, in the opinion of the assessor, has not been written as a narrative or where it is not comprehensible.

Your essay will be marked as a pass or a fail, you will not be allocated a specific mark. If you do not achieve the pass mark on your first submission you can resubmit the essay at any point. We will provide feedback to support you in your next attempt.

Essay submission

The word count required for this essay is between 400 and 800 words.

Once you access the assessment and press the ‘Submit now’ button, you will see our terms and conditions for reflective essays. Once you click ‘begin’ you will see a page to enter your completed reflective essay. At this point you will not be able to exit the page and come back to the essay at a later date. We suggest you write your essay in a word document or other suitable file and then copy and paste your final submission into the assessment submission area once you have entered the assessment submission area. This allows more time for true reflection and ensures you have a personal copy as evidence of your continuing professional development.

You will need to access the relevant assessment to submit your essay. You can do this by searching for the topic using the search facility. The assessment is highlighted by the ‘A’ icon.   Once you reach the webpage you can click on ‘Access’ to submit your essay.

Even if you choose not to have your essay marked by us at CPPE, you may find that this approach to thinking about what you have learned and how you have used it will help you to generate your own CPD/revalidation entries. Why not give it a go?

Plagiarism and generative AI

Academic malpractice is any activity – intentional or otherwise – that includes plagiarism, collusion, fabrication or falsification of results, and is considered a serious offence. Plagiarism is presenting the ideas, work or words of other people or documents without proper, clear and unambiguous acknowledgement. It can also include a close paraphrase of written words. One way to prevent plagiarism is not to construct a piece of work by cutting and pasting or copying material written by someone else into something you are submitting as your own work. In recent years, the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence (AI) have rapidly evolved, with tools such as ChatGPT becoming widely available. Not using generative AI responsibly can be considered a form of plagiarism. As such, we ask that its use is openly and honestly declared. The University of Manchester Artificial Intelligence (AI) Teaching guidance states that “presenting work created by Generative AI without suitable acknowledgement is plagiarism, and must be treated using the same principles and processes as plagiarism of a person”. However, CPPE and The University of Manchester also recognise that, for some learners, tools such as generative AI can be beneficial in co-creating an essay from a series of their own concepts and ideas, where the individual may struggle with the task of long-form writing. When used appropriately, generative AI tools have the potential to enhance teaching and learning, and can support inclusivity and accessibility. This is considered to be a responsible use of generative AI.

We use reflective essays for a range of our learning programmes to encourage you to engage in reflective practice. The benefits of reflective practice are based on your personal learning and experience. Reflective practice can lead you to make positive changes for the benefit of people who use your services. Using a generative AI tool may help you in shaping and constructing your essay, but the personal elements that you need for your essay to pass cannot be generated by AI. If you use a generative AI tool, then you need to find a way to blend your personal experiences with the suggestions that the tool makes. If you use a generative AI tool to support you, you will need to complete a declaration as part of the essay submission process.

On submission, you may be asked to make a series of declarations. These will ask you to confirm you have followed good practice in constructing your essay and the work you are submitting is your own, original work. Additionally, you will need to declare whether you have chosen to use a generative AI tool to support you with this process.