How to review your learning needs and build a CPD plan
Two of the four parts of an audited CPD record look forward: a review of your learning needs for the next 12 months and the learning activities you plan for them. Write the review as a short honest account of where your practice is and what is changing, turn each need into one or two planned activities with a month, and date the whole thing. Start a fresh plan each year and keep the old ones.
Write a learning needs review and plan
Set aside an hour once a year, ideally near the start of your audit block. Use your learning plan page or paper.
- Look back. Read the last 12 months of your log and note what changed in your practice and what did not.
- Look at your role. List what is changing in your work: new duties, new service users, new policies or equipment.
- Name the needs. Write three to six learning needs as gaps or goals, each one sentence.
- Plan activities. For each need, name one or two activities that would meet it and a month to aim for.
- Date it. Put today's date on the review so the record shows when it was written.
- Revisit it. Tick activities off as you log them and carry unfinished ones into next year's plan.
Why the plan is part of the record
The social worker guidance describes CPD as a cycle: review your knowledge, skills and performance, plan your priority learning needs and the activities that meet them, implement the plan, then evaluate and reflect on the effect. The audit guidelines ask for the review of learning needs and the planned activities for the next 12 months in every submitted record, so a log of activities alone is incomplete.
The FAQ notes that you may discuss your needs with a manager or supervisor but do not have to, and that registrants without a supervisor can still meet the requirement. The plan is yours.
Keeping each year on record
A plan covers 12 months. When you start the next one, keep the old one unchanged: an audit of a 24-month period may want to see the plan you actually wrote at the start, not a tidied version. Reflectora keeps one plan per year, starting on the date you choose, and carries unfinished planned activities forward as copies.
What a good learning need looks like
A useful need names a gap in practice and why it matters now: "assessing risk when a young person goes missing, because our service is taking more emergency placements" says more than "child protection". It points to the kind of activity that would meet it, and it gives you something to reflect on when the activity is done.
Worked example
A social worker's plan from 1 June 2026 has 4 planned activities, 1 of them done by the time the next plan is due. Starting the plan from 1 June 2027 carries 3 unfinished activities into it, and the earlier plan still shows all 4 as written, with the one done activity ticked.
The social worker then rewrites the review for the new year, drops one carried activity that no longer fits the role, and adds two new needs. Both years stay on record.
Common mistakes
- Writing needs as course titles. A need is a gap in practice; a course is one way to meet it.
- Planning 20 activities. Three to six needs, each with one or two activities, is realistic.
- Overwriting last year's plan instead of starting a new one.
- Leaving the plan undated.
- Never looking at the plan again until an audit.
Keep your own CPD log
Reflectora logs each activity with its credits and the four reflective fields, counts your credits in every 12-month period, shows the date you would fall under 30 if you logged nothing new, and prints an audit pack in your own layout. Everything stays in this browser.
Frequently asked questions
Does the CPD record need a learning plan?
Yes. The audit guidelines list a review of learning needs for the next 12-month period and planned learning activities for the next 12-month period among the parts of a submitted record.
Do I need my manager to sign off my plan?
The CPD FAQ says you can consult a manager or supervisor, and that registrants without a supervisor can still meet the requirements. The plan is your own.
What if I did not finish last year's plan?
Say so in your review and carry what still matters into the new plan. The audit checks that you have a process, not that every plan was completed.
Sources
Last reviewed 28 September 2026 against:
- Continuing Professional Development Audit: Guidelines for Registrants, CORU, document undated, read 28 September 2026. Used for: audit periods of 12 or 24 months, 30 credits in every 12-month period linked to the registration renewal date, what a submitted record contains, no service user or colleague identifiers, supporting documents kept but not submitted, and the two outcomes
- Guidance on Continuing Professional Development, Social Workers, CORU, approved July 2019, read 28 September 2026. Used for: the review, plan, implement, evaluate and reflect cycle of CPD
- CPD General Questions (FAQ), CORU, page undated, read 28 September 2026. Used for: one hour of new or enhanced learning equals one credit, any fraction of an hour may be attributed, the registrant decides the credits, no carry forward, the same requirement on leave, part-time or a career break, and keeping records while on the register
This guide is our own summary of the published documents, not legal advice and not a finding about your application; the regulator's assessors decide. If it disagrees with the current documents, the documents win. Reflectora is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to CORU, the Health and Social Care Professionals Council, any registration board or any professional body.