PROGRAMME DEVELOPMENT PLAN

By the time of submission of the self-study questionnaire, it is expected that the school will have worked on a number of programme development plans and is likely to have completed some of them. Programme development planning begins immediately after authorization and continues during all the time the school implements IB programmes. The school during this period will decide on and implement different programme development plans which will focus on areas that the school prioritizes and assigns a budget to in order to further programme development.

When a school's priorities or strategic objectives change, a new programme development plan will be created to reflect the newly identified needs. The existing plans may also be brought to an end or be updated and modified as needed.

How many programme development plans the school works on at a given time depends on the school context, on how experienced the school and its staff are and the number of other initiatives happening simultaneously. In some cases, the number of plans the school focuses on will be between one and three. In other contexts, schools may be able, having sufficient available staff and resources, to work on between three and five plans simultaneously. At any rate, it is expected that the school will be implementing at least a programme development plan every year. 

Programme development plans will vary in relation to their scope. Not all plans need to be extended over a long period of time: it is perfectly possible for a plan to aim at a short-term outcome. A plan may be complex, aiming for example a strategic plan focusing on different related aspects over a time span of five years, or it may be less ambitious with a much shorter implementation time span aiming for example at monitoring the impact on learning of a particular strategy, document it, measure it and share the outcome with the school community, all of which could be done within a year. 

A plan can also aim to have a positive impact on the learning of all students, for example, when the focus on inclusive education in all the years of a programme, or it could aim at having an impact on only a group of students as when the Arts department has a plan focusing on increasing the number of learning projects carried out with local artists.

A programme development plan may also be carried out and involve a specific group within the school community like for example teachers of a particular year who would like to strengthen collaborative planning to focus on language development for students who are learning in a language which is not their best language. A plan can also involve a greater number of people within the school community: for example plan focusing on student agency may involve the leadership team, teachers, students and parents.

As can be seen, programme development plans will vary greatly depending on a number of aspects (complexity, time span, impact, members of the  community they involve, resources needed)

If the school is a multi-programme or continuum school, it is highly recommendable that there should be both programme-specific development plans and cross-programme development plans focusing on vertical integration across programmes and on developing connections between them. In these cases, schools can submit up to four plans.

For the purposes of programme evaluation, the school selects and shares with the IB one completed programme development plan that has been undertaken during the five-year review period. In the case of multi-programme or continuum evaluation processes, it is highly encouraged that schools submit one whole-school programme development plan. There is an option for the school to submit one PDP per programme. 

The school shows how programme development was planned and implemented to have a positive impact on students. The school shares the results of the analysis undertaken to determine to what extent the intended impact was achieved. Finally, the school shares the reflection and lessons learned from its efforts and describes how these lessons will be applied in further or future efforts to develop the programme. In addition, the school identifies and articulates what has been learned from the process that can be applied to other areas of programme or continuum development.

The reflection process and the conclusion that result from it can help the school identify and prioritize areas for development and assign resources to additional or future development. As part of the reflection, the school is also asked to identify and specify what it has learned as a result of the implementation of the plan which may apply to other development areas.