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Session 5. Your Personal Growth Plan
Objective. Choose one growth goal from your reflections, write a one-page plan that links to courses 5.1-5.9, and test the plan with a partner using a checklist.
Courses end; teaching goes on. A growth plan is what stays with you when the certificate is in a drawer. It is not a form for the director but a promise to yourself, short enough to read in one minute and specific enough to act on. This session helps you write a goal that is about pupils, plan steps you can keep during a busy term and decide in advance how you will notice progress.
Key ideas
From four sessions to one goal
- Look back at your lens grid, your Gibbs cycle, your evidence plan and the feedback you received. What theme appears twice?
- Choose one goal. A teacher with one goal often finishes it; a teacher with seven usually finishes none.
- Write it about pupils, not about you: 'More pupils can explain their answer' is stronger than 'I will ask better questions'.
The one-page growth plan
- Seven parts: goal, why (your evidence), three dated steps, links to courses 5.1-5.9, support, evidence of progress, review date.
- Make the time frame about 90 days, roughly one school term. Long enough to see change, short enough to stay alive.
- The Education Endowment Foundation reviews teacher development and finds that goal setting, feedback and action planning are core ingredients of programmes that work. Your plan has all three.
Use courses 5.1-5.9 as a menu
- If your goal is about thinking and memory, return to 5.1; planning and timing, 5.2; routines and transitions, 5.3; participation, 5.4; checking learning, 5.5.
- Differences between pupils, 5.6; talking with pupils and parents, 5.7; digital tools, 5.8; careful use of AI help, 5.9.
- Pick the one course page or kit that fits your first step, and name it in the plan so you can find it again.
Keeping it alive
- Put the review date in your calendar or on the cover of your notebook. At the review ask: What does the evidence show? Continue, adjust or stop?
- Share the plan with one supportive person: a critical friend, or your subject methodical association if it meets.
- Celebrate small progress. When the goal is done, choose the next one. Elective 6.1 on multilingual classrooms is a natural next step for many of you.
The growth cycle
From a wish to a testable goal
Most goals start as wishes: 'I want my class to be more active.' To make a wish testable, climb a ladder of questions. Active how? In what part of the lesson? Seen by what? A better goal might read: 'In the independent practice, at least 20 of 28 pupils start within one minute of the instruction, seen in my observation log.' Now you can tell in a month whether it is happening.
A goal like this does not need to be perfect. It only needs a pupil behaviour, a number you can check and a date. If you cannot decide on a number, choose a rough one and adjust it at the first review. A rough measurable goal is better than a beautiful vague one.
Reviews, setbacks and staying kind to yourself
Most plans stall in the third or fourth week, when the term gets busy. Expect this and plan for it: put the review date in your calendar, and decide in advance what a small restart looks like, such as repeating step one for one more week. Missing a step is information about your plan, not a reason to drop it.
At each review look at your evidence, not your mood. Ask: What has changed for pupils? What helped? What got in the way? Then choose to continue, adjust or stop, and write one line saying why. Share the result with your critical friend. A small win told to someone is more likely to turn into a habit.
Examples from the classroom
From wish to number
Scene. Malika teaches Grade 6 in Tashkent and writes, 'I want pupils to speak more.' Her critical friend asks, 'Speak how, and when?' She rewrites: 'In every Friday lesson, at least 15 of 30 pupils say one full sentence aloud to a partner.' She will check by a tally during the pair task. The goal is now small, countable and dated.
Insight. A sharp goal names a pupil action, a number and a date.
A plan that survived October
Scene. Aziz's plan in Bukhara is to cut explanation to ten minutes in Grade 8 geography. In the third week an inspection visit throws his schedule and he slips back to twenty minutes. At the monthly review he reads the time log, sees the slip and the reason, and restarts step one for one more week. By December his log shows ten to twelve minutes in most lessons.
Insight. A review date and a time log turn a setback into information and a restart.
Sharing a plan at the methodical association
Scene. Dilnoza, in Samarkand, brings her one-page plan to her subject methodical association. Three colleagues choose similar goals about pupils' written explanations. They agree to swap exit tickets once a month and to meet for twenty minutes to read them together. Dilnoza finds her plan easier to keep because others are expecting it.
Insight. Support from colleagues turns a private plan into a shared habit.
Common pitfalls
- Writing a goal about yourself ('I will be more patient') that no one could ever check.
- Setting three or four goals and finishing none.
- Dated steps in the plan that are all in the first week, leaving nothing for the rest of the term.
- Treating a stalled plan as a personal failure instead of a reason to review.
Write, Test and Share Your Growth Plan
- Alone (10 min): lay out your notes from sessions 1 to 4. Underline any theme that appears twice, and write one sentence: 'My growth goal is that my pupils can ...'.
- Alone (15 min): fill the one-page plan template in the kit. Be specific with dates and with the evidence you will collect.
- In pairs (15 min): swap plans and tick the checklist on your partner's plan. Give two strengths and one question, using fact, effect, question.
- Alone (10 min): revise your plan once, then read your goal and first step aloud to the group.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which part of the plan was hardest to write? Which part will most likely be forgotten?
- What did your partner's question change in your plan?
- What will you do in the first week, in the first lesson, to start?
Reflect
- If this plan works, what will be different in your classroom in 90 days?
- What might get in the way, and who can help you with it?
- Which habit from this course will you keep after the certificate?
Try it tomorrow
- Write your growth goal in one sentence beginning 'By (date), my pupils can ...', and add a number.
- Put your review date in your calendar or on the cover of your notebook today.
- Show the plan to one colleague and ask them to check it against the checklist.
Further reading and links
One goal about pupils, three dated steps, a way to check and a date to review.