Lancaster professional programme
The Lancaster professional programme provides recognition of your professional and personal development.
Lancaster Professional Programme the first step in your professional career
About
The Lancaster ProfessionalProgramme uses reflective practice to allow you to engage in continuous learning and to promote your personal development and growth.
Who is it for?
The Lancaster Professional Programme is open to all members of administrative, technical and manual staff of the University and is particularly relevant to those within grades 1-6.
How is it structured?
The programme offers the opportunity for you to work towards a Bronze, Silver and Gold award. The awards offer the opportunity for you to signal your commitment to your professional development and to receive institutional recognition for your work.
'Development Activities' can take any form of development, such as:
- Participation in Organisation Development workshops e.g. Committee Servicing, Organising Successful Events
- Participation in internal or external events that enable professional networking opportunities e.g. conferences, external courses, professional qualifications etc.
- Volunteering or job shadowing
- Mentoring
- Other professional development agreed as part of PDR
When you have successfully completed all three award levels you will be offered a one to one coaching session to establish your development from that point.
To be eligible for the each of awards, you will need to:
1) Complete three reflective journals to record the development activities undertaken and the learning you gained from each of them. Use a separate journal for each development activity. You might like to share this with your mentor/critical friend. You are advised to send each journal to OD seperately, so that you can receive feedback before attempting your next one.
Please refer to Planning your personal and professional development for help with writing your reflective statements.
2) Write a short statement (no more than one side A4) that describes the overall benefit/impact that the events listed in your log have had on your role. This statement should then be signed and endorsed by your line manager, before sending it to OD at any point in the year.
You will need to work incrementally through the awards from the bronze level and you will be expected to demonstrate how you have developed your reflective skills as you work through the awards.
How does this benefit me?
Developing the important skill of reflective practice will improve your work performance and help to kick-start your career. You will be rewarded with institutional recognition of your achievement.
There are many staff that have taken part in the Lancaster Professional Programme, finding it a rewarding programme and an excellent start to their professional career.
Here is what one member of staff had to say about the programme:
"I loved being part of the Lancaster Professional Programme. For me, it was invaluable in terms of encouraging and developing reflective learning and providing numerous opportunities to network with colleagues campus-wide. The Programme made me re-evaluate and really think about my role which led to a noticeable improvement in my working practices benefitting not just myself but also my team”