“Personal
Statement” and “Reflective Account”
are phrases
used interchangeably but they mean the same thing in NVQs, so I
will be using ‘personal statement’ for the purpose of this article.
What
is a personal statement?
You
can split the phrase into two words, “personal” and
“statement”. Let’s then
take the words one after the other. Simply put
“personal” means pertaining
to a particular person, relating to or affecting an individual. On the other hand
“statement” means an
account, a report, an utterance, an explanation, a declaration.
In
my own words therefore, I will simply define personal statement as
“a report of
an individual.”
To write a good personal
statement for your
NVQ, you have to understand that this is
all about you and your past work experiences. Your statement should
contain situations
that you have encountered whilst doing your work. This may be within a
week
period, a month period, a year period and you can even include
experiences from
your past jobs as long as this is within reasonable period of time,
say-within
three years.
When
you are asked to write a personal statement by your assessor, the first
thing
you need to understand is the particular area you are required to write
on. If
you are not sure, make sure you ask your assessor about this. This is
very
important so that you will not waste a lot of time writing and at the
end,
getting feedback that you have not produced a good work. You have to
remember
that it is very easy to write a personal statement and not cover the
required
standards or write a personal statement that is knowledge focused only
without showing
any performance.
Is
a
personal statement the same as a job description?
The
answer is NO! Candidates often times submit job description as personal
statement. There is a difference between the two. However, a job
description
can be turned into a personal statement if worded properly. For
instance:
“As
an administrator, every Monday I receive incoming
calls from clients and I also handle all other queries and requests. I
also
sort out posts and process all necessary paper work. I do all these to
the
required standard by adhering to all policies especially data
protection/
confidentiality. Another
task I do is organise departmental meetings. I
also
prepare all necessary documents to be used during any meeting and send
emails
to remind team members…”
The above job description can be turned to a personal statement, see example 2 below.
Personal
Statement (example
2)
“As
an administrator, last week Monday, I received incoming
calls from clients, and I also handled all other queries and requests.
I sorted
out all posts and I processed all the necessary paper work for the day
whilst
making sure I adhere to all policies especially data
protection/confidentiality. As I had to organise the departmental
meeting that
day, I prepared all the documents needed and I sent email
communications to
members of the team to remind them of the meeting. This is a procedure
I have
to follow prior to any meeting. At a point I was not sure of where some
files
which are to be used in the meeting were placed so I went to my manager
to ask…”
From
the above two examples, you will agree with me that there is a
difference.
Example
1 is a job description and it only shows that the candidate has
knowledge of
what he/she is supposed to do at work. This is only knowledge based and
does
not show any performance.
On
the other hand, example 2 is a personal statement which described
typical
examples of actual performance, which actually showed the candidate
completed
the tasks.
I
have made some suggestions below as to the key points to remember when
writing
a personal statement.
- It
will be a good idea first to introduce yourself, your job title and
then
explain briefly what your job entails. This will form an introduction
to your
statement. It will also give your assessor knowledge of your job role
and what
to expect in your writing.
- Your
personal statement should read like a story and show examples of actual
performance of your job role as I have explained. Use the word
“I” throughout
the statement. This is about what YOU did; YOUR involvement etc and you
should
be able to prove that the situation occurred.
- Select
a job role or situation you are going to write about, set the scene and
then
tell the story.
- You
might want to include in your writing the date (when the event you are
talking
about took place) and location (where the event took place).
- When
you make mention of people in your statement, it may be a good idea to
ask for
a witness statement for authenticity. In example 2 above, it will be
the
candidate’s manager.
- In
your writing, remember to explain meanings of technical terms as your
assessor,
internal verifier and external verifier might not easily understand
terms
specific to your job role.
- Show
application and understanding of knowledge by linking what you did to
any
relevant policy, theory and regulation (“the reason I did this
was…”)
- You
can also show the thinking behind your actions by adding why you did
what you
did (“I decided to do this because…”)
- If
you mention that a record was made, show the original record to your
assessor.
Again this will prove your account and will also provide very useful
additional
evidence.
- If
you mention any work you did that is recorded electronically, it might
be a
good idea to do screen shots or print screen the records and then paste
on or
attach to your statement. You can then reference this to particular
points in
your personal statement. (For example you can say, see appendix 3 after
describing a situation). This will save you time and resources of
having to
print out all supporting documents.
- When
writing a personal statement, remember that your assessor is
assessing
what you did in your job – not your grammar, spelling or presentation.
I
hope this article will be of help and will guide you to
write good personal statement which will cover as many
performance criteria as possible across your chosen NVQ units.
Check other related articles via the links below:
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