Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with ICE before applying.
Work backwards from the review session you intend to attend. Use dates you have confirmed with ICE when planning your application.
The dependencies that catch people out
IPD completion has to be registered before you apply, not before your review. A Professional Review application is rejected if a Training Agreement completion has not been registered with ICE, and that can take up to eight weeks after your SCE signs off.
Sponsors submit before you do. Both statements of support have to be on the sponsors portal before you upload, by the published deadline. That means asking them weeks earlier than feels necessary, because they have jobs too.
The fee is paid before the upload. Not at the same time, and not afterwards.
Your report needs to be finished early enough to be read. Your lead sponsor has a duty to give constructive criticism of it, and they cannot do that in two days. Working back from the deadline, a good draft needs to exist roughly two months before you upload.
The educational base is not a late task. If it is unresolved, it is not a task on this plan at all: it is a prerequisite, and it may move your target session by a year.
How to build a realistic plan
- 01
Pick the session, then check it is possible
Look at the confirmed deadline, count backwards, and be honest about whether the report can be written properly in the time. Most people who rush this apply again.
- 02
Put the fixed dates in first
The application deadline, the sponsor deadline, and any dates ICE has given you. Everything else moves around these.
- 03
Work backwards in months, not weeks
Report drafting is measured in months. Appendix assembly, in weeks. Final formatting and the single-PDF assembly, in days, but they always take longer than expected.
- 04
Book your mock reviews now
Practice interviews depend on other people's diaries. Ask before you need them, and ask your lead sponsor first: arranging them is part of their role.
- 05
Leave a fortnight of contingency
Something will go wrong. A sponsor will be on leave, a file will be over 15 MB, or a certified copy will need chasing.
Official sources
Selected publisher pages were rechecked in September 2026. Other source records were last checked in July 2026. Open the latest official document before relying on a requirement.