Learning programmes and assessments

This reflective essay assessment completes the learning you began with the CPPE Self management 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

Each of the essays 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
• How will (or has) this change benefit 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

If you decide to write and submit your essay to us we will set a specific word count range for you to meet. If you are writing a reflective essay linked to one of the CPPE programmes then this will be between 400 and 800 words. If you are writing your essay as one of the assessments for our clinical pharmacists in general practice programme, then this will be between 800 and 1000 words.

Once you access the assessment and press the ‘submit’ 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 entries. Why not give it a go?