Failed first assignment

Monika, what is the assignment and who are you studying with? Is the feedback in relation to not meeting the learning outcomes or is it your style of writing? Either way, I would suggest reaching out to student services or better yet, you should be able to send s communication to your tutor through the platform you use to submit assignments requesting support. You are certainly not the first to have failed and it sounds like you need a good steer, dont be despondent, I'm sure your provider will help.

Thanks Cass. I'm sitting through ICS, student services hasvebeen in touch with pretty much the same brief as the original assignment but they have unpacked each individual assessment criteria in more detail. The area that I seemed to have not completed is activity four:

From the original task:

"Undertake a self-assessment of one area of your practice to identify your professional development needs in that area and options to address these.
Produce a professional development plan (PDP) plan to meet your professional development needs which includes a justification of the option(s) chosen.
During your programme, provide a reflective summary of your performance against the plan. You should also identify any future development needs and record these in your PDP."

I submitted a PDP plan - this is how I read it. However student services are saying I need to take a self assessment on my skills, knowledge, behavior using the CIPD map which I thought I had transferred into a PDP map. It's very confusing. Is a PDP plan completely different to a CPD plan?! My original feedback claimed I didn't even attempt it.

Thanks Cass. I'm sitting through ICS, student services hasvebeen in touch with pretty much the same brief as the original assignment but they have unpacked each individual assessment criteria in more detail. The area that I seemed to have not completed is activity four:

From the original task:

"Undertake a self-assessment of one area of your practice to identify your professional development needs in that area and options to address these.
Produce a professional development plan (PDP) plan to meet your professional development needs which includes a justification of the option(s) chosen.
During your programme, provide a reflective summary of your performance against the plan. You should also identify any future development needs and record these in your PDP."

I submitted a PDP plan - this is how I read it. However student services are saying I need to take a self assessment on my skills, knowledge, behavior using the CIPD map which I thought I had transferred into a PDP map. It's very confusing. Is a PDP plan completely different to a CPD plan?! My original feedback claimed I didn't even attempt it.

Hi Monika,

I completed my level 5 online through Avado;
In terms of your specific feedback, part of the requirement, in addition to the PDP plan, was a copy of your skills assessment on the CIPD Map to demonstrate you did it. I had to screen grab my results, then explain which one I had focused on and why; then create a PDP, then offer a summary explaining why I had chosen one learning method over another.

When I completed my assessments;
I used the learning outcome purely to understand WHAT I had to produce e.g. a presentation, an essay, a business case, a policy, etc.
I used the assessment criteria to BUILD whatever was asked. E.G if I had to write a presentation, each part of the assessment criteria had its own slide and notes, (even though I would NEVER EVER present such a thing in real life as it looked awful). The assignments are a bit like a Driving Test; you do what you need to do so that you pass, even though it may be nothing like real life

I also learnt on my first assignment; don't worry explicitly about word counts - I went massively overboard and the assessor just highlighted bits I DIDN'T need to include - images/graphs/graphics don't count towards them either :-)

I too had issues with my online Tutor, so can understand they may not be much help (literally my tutor was why I wouldn't recommend Avado but they have now left so it could be better now) - however I learnt loads from my peer group and other students. I hope ICS has the same - there should be a student forum.... You can post questions and get help from peers, and occasionally a Tutor might look in and help as well. Use your peers for help. Any question you ask to Student Services can be copied and pasted with their response to help others as well.

I would, if I were you, raise the point about being misled regarding resubmissions; that's not on. Especially if they are expecting you to pay for a resit. I would also make a complaint about feedback missing; without the feedback you've got no chance of understanding what needed to be changed for the 2nd resubmission.

You will be able to do a resit, with a different assignment brief but similar criteria; I'm not sure how ICS do it, but Avado offered the resits at the end of the whole course. Ask Student Services for the info.

I can also vouch that many students fail assignments throughout the course; the first is typically the worst as people get used to the requirements and format. Don't worry :-)

Kind regards
Laura