CESR (Portfolio Pathway): How this course helps you build verifiable teaching evidence

If you’re working towards CESR via the GMC Portfolio Pathway, you’ll already know the hardest part isn’t doing the work, it’s proving it, clearly, against the curriculum.

Teaching is a great example. Most CESR clinicians teach regularly (on the ward, in tutorials, in departmental teaching), but the evidence is often scattered, inconsistent, or hard to “map” and verify.

This course is designed to fix that: it helps you turn real-life teaching into clean, portfolio-ready evidence that’s easier to organise, describe, and use in your application.

At a glance

If you’re on the CESR / Portfolio Pathway, whether you’re a SAS doctor, IMG, trust-grade doctor, or working in any other clinical role, this course helps you turn everyday teaching into clear, portfolio-ready evidence.

What it improves: structure + documentation + feedback + reflection.

Outcome: teaching evidence that looks intentional, not accidental

Why teaching evidence matters in CESR

A Portfolio Pathway application is assessed against the current specialty curriculum, and the GMC expects you to use your specialty’s Specialty Specific Guidance (SSG) to understand what evidence is needed.

Across specialties, curricula also include generic professional capabilities (the “professional” capabilities expected of UK specialists), which include educational outcomes that link to how you teach, supervise, and support others.

The common CESR teaching problem

Many CESR applicants have plenty of teaching activity, but the evidence often falls into these traps:

• No consistent structure (hard to show progression or quality)

• Feedback is missing or weak (or collected informally)

• Reflection is too vague (“went well”) rather than showing impact and development

• Documents aren’t easy to describe, group, or cross-reference

• Evidence isn’t prepared with verification/anonymisation in mind (so it becomes stressful later)

CESR is rarely about doing more, it’s about evidencing what you already do, properly.

What this course gives you

1) A repeatable teaching structure you can evidence

You’ll learn a simple teaching framework that you can reuse for:

• ward-based teaching

• tutorials

• simulation

• departmental sessions

• online teaching

This makes your evidence look standardised and deliberate, which helps when you’re mapping evidence across multiple curriculum areas.

2) Feedback collection that’s quick, and actually useful

You’ll leave with practical ways to collect feedback efficiently (without chasing people for weeks), so each session produces:

• a clear topic + aims

• proof of delivery

• learner feedback

• themes and “what I changed next time”

  
  

3) Reflections that read like CESR evidence (not diary entries)

The course teaches a concise reflection style that shows:

• what you did

• what feedback showed

• what you changed

• what impact that had

This is exactly the difference between “I taught” and “I developed as an educator.”

4) CPD evidence (plus an optional extra evidence piece)

You get CPD from the live workshop, and if you choose the optional written assignment, you also produce a structured output you can file as additional evidence (plus extra CPD on your certificate).

FAQ

Does this course replace my Specialty Specific Guidance (SSG)?

No, your SSG is still the rulebook for what evidence your specialty expects. This course helps you produce stronger teaching evidence in a format that’s easier to map to the SSG.

I’m not “officially” a trainer, can I still use teaching evidence?

Yes. CESR teaching evidence often comes from everyday clinical practice: ward teaching, induction teaching, departmental sessions, supervision, and informal teaching that’s been documented properly.

I don’t have time, will this add workload?

It’s designed to reduce workload by giving you a system. Most of the “work” is what you already do; the course makes the evidence capture quick and repeatable.

Closing

If you’re building a Portfolio Pathway application, your teaching can be one of your easiest wins, if it’s structured, documented, and mapped properly. This course gives you the framework and the evidence tools to make that happen without drowning in admin.