APC Reflective Journal

This change only affects people applying for Chartered status through the L-APC and A-APC routes. Candidates are still required to submit a Reflective Journal for the Degree Apprenticeship route. Writing a Reflective Journal for the EP-APC was never a requirement, so there is no change.

For the Degree Apprenticeship, candidates have to submit the Reflective Journal twice, once when they go through Gateway and once as part of their written DA-APC submission.

We have listened to what candidates, employers, assessors and other stakeholders have said when we conducted the APC Review survey in 2023. A key finding of that survey was that the Reflective Journal was one of the biggest barriers for candidates applying for Chartered membership, due to the time commitment. There was also anecdotal evidence of candidates “backfilling” their Reflective Journal, rather than logging their work experience at the time they gained it. This has the effect of undermining the purpose of the Reflective Journal, which is to be a reflective tool to help candidates choose appropriate examples of work to form case studies to evidence all the competencies in the PCS.

The Reflective Journal is not an assessed document for the APC. Rather, it is a learning tool used by candidates to support their submission. What candidates must demonstrate to become Chartered has not changed as a result of this announcement. It is important that the APC standards are maintained over time to ensure that becoming Chartered remains a respected professional award by employers, peers, clients and members of the public.

While the Reflective Journal will no longer be a factor for assessors’ consideration of your submission, we still believe that completing the Reflective Journal will make for a much stronger submission. The Reflective Journal is part of a period of structured learning and we strongly encourage candidates to continue to keep a Reflective Journal, as it will assist them in identifying case studies for their PCS.

No, you can still submit a Reflective Journal, it is just no longer a mandatory requirement for the L-APC and A-APC routes to Chartered membership.

Yes, we still encourage candidates to write a Reflective Journal as it will help them reflect on their work experience and choose appropriate examples of work to write up as a case study to evidence the competencies in the PCS.

The change to make the submission of the Reflective Journal non-mandatory was announced to candidates in July 2024 and will come into effect for Assessment Round 1 in February 2025. We wanted to give candidates a minimum of six months’ notice of the change, so candidates had time to adapt the preparation of their submission accordingly.

It is not anticipated that any further changes to the APC process will be announced before the end of 2025. We will give a minimum of six months’ notice period before any further changes are announced, should there be any. A wider review of the current APC process is being considered as part of the Education for Everyone (EFE) review.

The Reflective Journal is not formally assessed but it is reviewed by assessors and used as an additional source of assessment evidence. When marking the PCS, the assessors might find that you are on the borderline between being successful and unsuccessful for a particular competency. The assessors will look in the Reflective Journal for more information to provide clarity on how you met the competency e.g., more clarity around your contribution to the project and more background and contextual information about your involvement.