The Professional Learning Portfolio is the first of two modules (the other being Understanding Teaching) that make up the School Direct Salaried PGCE Top Up Programme. The School Direct Salaried PGCE Top Up Programme, at the IOE, is specifically designed for current students on the School Direct (Salaried) route to QTS, as a way of gaining the PGCE qualification by the end of their first year of teaching. It runs over four terms and begins towards the end of the training year while students are still enrolled on this route. Successful completion of The Professional Learning Portfolio and the Understanding Teaching module will lead to the award of the PGCE. The Understanding Teaching module is also the first module taken in the MTeach programme, as part of the New Teacher Pathway. PGCE Top Up is currently going through an significant programme amendment that will hopefully allow students enrolled on SDS PGCE top up to progress onto the MTeach programme directly, should students wish to do this. A professional learning portfolio (PLP) is a working document containing evidence from your classroom work and reflection, which you can revise and update throughout your career. The Schools Direct (Salaried) PLP is an opportunity for you to present evidence from this current training year—your first year as a teacher—for assessment as part of your SDS PGCE. Keeping a PLP is a process which should be a natural part of a teacher's professional development planning cycle, and material should be collected and reviewed regularly. It is a working document, forming a record both of work in progress and of critical reflection on that work. The process of developing and keeping up a PLP has several advantages. In summary, it will: stimulate the collection of evidence about teaching and research accomplishments; promote reflection about teaching and other professional experiences; encourage discussion about teaching and professional activities with peers, department, etc.; stimulate thinking about a philosophy of teaching and a future developmental and/or research agenda; assist in job applications; support teachers who want to select evidence for other professional purposes. An essential part of a PLP is the collection of evidence — though it is the process of engagement and the learning outcomes that count, rather than the simple assembly of evidence. The Professional Learning Portfolio (PLP) enables you to showcase a range of your practice and to provide evidence of reflection and evaluation, which will substantiate and extend what you have recorded in other developmental documents. The PLP records your analysis of teaching and learning, and thus begins an evaluation of the theory and practice of teaching and learning.