CORU CPD Reflection Examples: Weak Entries Rewritten for Audit

What does CORU check in a CPD reflection at audit?

If you are selected for audit, you submit your CPD record through your profile on CORU's registrant system, and the record must cover four parts: implementation of learning activities that achieved 30 CPD credits of new or enhanced learning, evaluation and reflection of the learning achieved, a review of learning needs for the next 12-month period, and planned learning activities for that period. The minimum is 30 credits in every 12-month period, and professions with a 24-month audit period still have to show at least 30 credits in each 12-month block. (Our CORU CPD requirements hub sets out the full requirement.)

The CORU CPD Audit Policy (V3, approved by the Council on 4 November 2025) gives you 30 working days from notification to submit your record or a deferral request. The CORU Executive then reviews the record against those four requirements, and the outcome is either compliant or non-compliant. CORU's audit FAQs state plainly that there is "no scope" for CORU or a Registration Board to give qualitative feedback on a record. You will not get a note saying "expand your reflection". The record either shows the learning or it does not.

Those 2025 figures, from CORU's annual report, cover physiotherapists, social workers, occupational therapists, optometrists and dispensing opticians, and exclude 136 registrants who were removed, deferred or ineligible. They are reassuring, but they are not a reason to write the bare minimum: a clear record also protects you if anything in it is ever questioned. If you want to know what happens on the deadline side, including deferrals and non-compliance, our guide to CORU CPD audit deadlines, deferrals and non-compliance covers that process in detail.

Who is next

Social care workers face a first-ever audit with its own features; see our guide to CPD for social care workers ahead of the first CORU audit.

How to write the Learning Outcome and Impact on Practice fields

CORU's record has an "Implement" part (date and time spent, type of learning activity, name of the activity, CPD credits) and an "Evaluate & Reflect" part with two prompts per activity.

The optional CPD Record Template uses the same fields as the portal, so you can draft in the template and copy across. It is a recording tool only; you do not submit it. The policy adds that supporting documents are not required and should not be attached. That is exactly why the two narrative fields carry so much weight: there is no certificate sitting beside them to do the work.

Questions the Registration Boards suggest

The Registration Boards' CPD Support documents (most approved in 2019) offer reflective prompts. The Speech and Language Therapists Registration Board version lists eight "Evaluate and Reflect" questions, including "What have I learnt?", "Did I achieve my learning outcomes?", "How have I applied this learning at work?", "What was the impact of this learning for service users and/or quality service provision?" and "What lessons can I take from this experience?" The same Support documents describe three reflective models: Rolfe, Freshwater and Jasper's "What? So What? Now What?", Gibbs' reflective cycle, and Bain's 5Rs.

You do not have to name a model in your record. In practice, "What? So What? Now What?" maps neatly onto the two fields: What and So what go into the learning outcome, and Now what goes into impact on practice. Pharmacists work through a similar staged structure, shown in our IIOP CPD cycle example. CORU's general CPD FAQs add two useful points: reflection can be on a positive or a negative learning experience, and "the key element is reflecting on how the event or activity will impact your practice in the future".

How many CPD credits should a reflection claim?

CORU's rule is that credits are self-determined on the basis that one hour of new or enhanced learning equals one credit, and that you can attribute any fraction of an hour to an activity. The same FAQ warns that attending the same mandatory training again "may not facilitate any new or enhanced learning", that simply having students on placement is not enough to claim credits, and that surplus credits cannot be carried forward. Our separate explainer on CORU CPD credits and what counts works through the edge cases (part-time work, leave, non-practising registrants); here the focus is on how the credit figure and the reflection support each other.

The Radiographers Registration Board's own exemplar is a useful calibration. It records a 2-day, 12-hour IV cannulation course as 6 credits, a 2-hour webinar as 0.5 credits and a 30-hour radiation dose audit as 4 credits, while a mandatory online Children First course, taken before starting a new role in an HSE department, is recorded at 1 credit for 1.5 hours. The message is that the credit figure reflects the learning, not the clock.

CORU reflection example 1: SLT journal club

Self-directed and work-based learning is often under-recorded because there is no certificate. Professional reading, journal clubs and discussions with colleagues all appear in the Board Support documents' list of possible CPD activities.

Notice that the strong entry does not overstate. It does not claim the department changed its screening tool. It records what the registrant did and what is planned, which is honest and still clearly shows learning in use.

CORU reflection example 2: radiographer, repeat mandatory training

Mandatory refreshers are where many records lose credibility. Mandatory training is not excluded as such (the Radiographers Registration Board exemplar includes a mandatory course), but the credit must be tied to what was new to you.

Claiming 1 credit can feel like a loss, but it makes the other 29 more believable. It also forces you to look for richer learning elsewhere, which is the point of the scheme.

CORU reflection example 3: social worker, capacity workshop

Legal updates are high-value CPD for social workers, but entries often stop at "learned about the new law". The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 commenced on 26 April 2023 and replaced the wardship system for adults. Section 3 sets out a functional test: capacity is assessed on the person's ability, at the time a decision is to be made, to understand, retain, use or weigh the relevant information, and to communicate the decision. (Our Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act course covers functional capacity assessment and supported decision-making.)

The same pattern works for any CORU profession: name what you knew before, what you know now, and the concrete thing you now do differently. If supervision is where much of your learning happens, our clinical supervision and development planning course covers using supervision to turn learning needs into a plan.

Where records fell short in earlier CORU audits

CORU published trend reports on the first audits under an earlier CPD model (24-month cycles from 2015, with requirements such as eight reflective practice reports and at least one activity every three months). That model has since been replaced by the current four-part record, so treat the findings as lessons about writing, not as current rules.

Mistakes that weaken an otherwise good record

• Copying course objectives. The provider's learning outcomes describe the course, not you.
• Future tense only. "I will apply this" is a plan. Where you can, record what you have already done, even if small.
• Identifiable detail. CORU's FAQ says reflective records should not contain confidential or identifying information.
• Activities outside the audit period. CORU's audit page states that only activities completed within the audit period count.
• All formal courses. Supervision, peer review, reading and service development are legitimate CPD and often produce the strongest impact statements.
• Assuming a provider is "CORU-approved". CORU says it has no role in the development, delivery or accreditation of CPD activities; you judge relevance and credits yourself, whichever online CPD courses or other activities you choose.

Closing the loop: review of learning needs and the plan

Two of the four audit requirements look forward, and the best place to find material for them is the reflections you have already written. The record's review-plan prompts are "What do I want or need to learn in the next 12 months?" and "What learning activities will I do to achieve this in the next 12 months?" CORU's registrant guide adds that Review & Plan must be completed for each 12-month period, and asks for planned activities for months 13 to 24, so registrants on a 24-month audit period should expect to complete it twice.

1. Harvest the "now what"

   List the gaps your impact entries exposed: the SLT's appraisal skills, the social worker's recording of supports offered.

2. Turn each into a learning need

   One sentence, specific to your role: "Confident appraisal of diagnostic accuracy studies in dysphagia."

3. Attach a realistic activity

   Name the activity type and when: a module, a supervision goal, a peer review, an audit.

4. Say how you will know

   A brief outcome, such as leading the next journal club or a supervisor's review of your notes.

The SLT Board's exemplar shows this well: each of its three plan items pairs a learning need with a named activity, such as an online ethics course for confidentiality or a further service project to build on earlier improvement training. Note that the Board exemplars deliberately include more than 30 credits to show a range of activities; the SLT one totals 55. You need 30 in each 12-month period, not 55.

Turning your next activity into evidence: a 15-minute routine

The trend reports showed the cost of reconstructing a year of learning from memory. Writing within a week of the activity is the simplest fix. CORU's FAQs also ask you to keep your CPD documentation for as long as you are on the Register, even though you do not upload it at audit.

• Record the date, activity type, name and the hours of genuinely new learning (fractions are fine).
• Write one sentence on what you knew or did before.
• Write two or three sentences on what you learned, naming the specific skill, fact or insight.
• Record one thing you have already done differently, and one you plan to do.
• Note who or what benefits: service users, colleagues, the service.
• Remove names, dates of birth, locations or details that could identify anyone.
• Check the credit figure against the length of what you wrote.
• File your own evidence (certificate, notes) privately; do not attach it at audit.

If you are a few months from your audit date and your record is mostly titles and hours, start with your five largest credit claims and rewrite those first. Activities where you learned from routine work, such as case discussions, can be developed using the approach in our Work-Based Learning and Professional Competence course (written around the Medical Council framework, but the reflective method transfers), and the Reflection for Fitness to Practise course goes deeper into the models CORU's Boards cite.

Checked against the official sources above in October 2026. Rules and fees change, so confirm current requirements with your regulator or scheme.