Well, nearly. There are several stages to the assessment of a diploma portfolio. First is the Interim Portfolio Assessment, where your tutor checks and signs off your first five designs - I went through this in the summer.
Second is the first Final Portfolio Assessment, where your tutor checks and signs off your second five designs. For me, this happened in September, where I spent an afternoon at The Inkpot with Hannah reading through my designs while I corrected typos and added missing photographs and re-drew unclear diagrams.
There were a few small tweaks to a couple of my designs, and one wasn't finished at all. However, those tweaks have been made, and Design 7: Land management has (finally) been finished, and everything has been sent off to Hannah.
What happens next?
Hannah needs to read and sign off my tweaks, and I'm sure she'll tell me if there are any tweaks needed to Design 7. After that, my entire portfolio goes through the 2nd Final Portfolio Assessment, where a second senior tutor reads a couple of my designs to moderate Hannah's marking. There may be a couple of tweaks needed after this stage, but I wouldn't expect too many.
And then the final part, which is more of a celebration than an assessment - I will present my portfolio at the National Diploma Gathering in March, which will be held at Roots and Shoots in London.
And what happens after that?
Well, this is what Design 10: Keeping permaculture in my life was all about. I identified three potential future avenues
- Writing about permaculture
- Registering as a tutor
- Working towards becoming a LAND demonstration site
I've already started working my first post-diploma permaculture design, around making good use of the excess water we find ourselves wading through in the winter. There is tutor training before the gathering in March, so I need to make a decision about whether to register for that. And I want to set up some visits to other LAND centres to see what's involved.
I've enjoyed having permaculture and the diploma in my life these last few years, and I don't want to let that go, especially not now we have space and the opportunity to experiment more. I'm excited to see where this will take us.