Over the past week our Education and Postgraduate Officers, Megan and Shingai, have been working with the University to ensure students are properly supported in their education during these difficult times. As a result, the University have just released a package of mitigation for the coming terms, a simplified version of which can be found below. This will be under constant review in the coming weeks with the SU continuing to be involved in discussions.

COVID Education Support Package Simplified

UNDERGRADUATE

EXAMS AND ASSESSMENTS

• September resits for intermediate and final year students who do not progress or graduate.
• September resits for first year students who do not pass core modules required to progress.
• Mark distribution across modules will be analysed against pre-COVID cohorts with module level scaling used where necessary.
• Students will continue to have the right to defer an assessment period (usually from summer to September).
• As in pre-COVID academic years, a student who achieves a grade within 2% of the next degree classification, will be considered for promotion.
• As in previous years, students with mitigating circumstances can also be considered for promotion of degree classification.

EXTENSIONS

• Students have the right to self-certify for a five-day extension on an assignment twice throughout the academic year. This was first introduced in October and still applies.
• As communicated last Friday, there has also been a blanket one-week extension provided for all eligible assessments throughout January. This may not include tests, exams or weekly homework that is time dependent and may not be available to students on degrees with professional accreditation.
• If students require extra time after this, they should apply for extensions through their department as usual. Department staff have been told to be flexible given the current situation.
• Students with the reasonable adjustment ‘flexibility with deadlines’ will have this on top of blanket extensions and self-certifications.
• Late penalties can also be removed on assessments that have been affected by mitigating circumstances such as IT failure or childcare issues.

MITIGATION AND REASONABLE ADJUSTMENTS

• Mitigating circumstances can be submitted as usual through Tabula. These include problems with childcare and IT issues. Evidence requirements have been relaxed.
• Cover sheets will be made available if appropriate for students completing dissertations and projects so they can explain resources that they have not had access to.  The exact approach may differ by Department.
• Students graduating in 2020/21 will not have their grades adversely affected by the rapid move to online teaching and assessment in Spring/Summer 2020.

POSTGRADUATE

• All of the above measures on extensions, mitigation and reasonable adjustments also apply to PGT students.
• PGT students will have the right to resit failed modules with the exception of professional practice modules and unless constrained by accreditation requirements.
• If a PGT student achieves a classification within 2% of the Merit/Distinction they will be promoted if 50% of the weighted credits are in the higher boundary. This should include the dissertation/project if applicable.