Friday 15-01-2021 - 14:00

You'll receive an update today from the university on academic mitigations for assessments this year. This announcement has followed three days of talks with the university and we are pleased to see them implement some of the measures we have been calling for since late November. We hope that the mitigations agreed go some way to reassure you in the assessments that you are about to take. 

However, there are some areas where we've not yet been able to reach an agreement, and the measures announced today do not constitute a finished safety net that fully mitigates the impact of Covid on everybody's qualifications. You'll notice there's currently no no-detriment policy, our calls for which have been rejected. We will continue to negotiate with the university to put in place the blanket measures that are needed to recognise the impact of the pandemic on all students.  

We're proud of what we've managed to win for students so far, but we know the current mitigations do not go far enough and will continue to fight for more comprehensive support for the summer assessment period. We are pleased that the university will continue to meet with us to discuss what these further measures will look like. 

There will be an Education Network Forum following exams where you'll be able to give us feedback on the January assessment period and organise with us for more comprehensive measures for the summer. This is open to all students and we really encourage you to attend to let us know what you think and help us lobby the university to do more to support students in their studies. 

David Ion (Undergraduate Education Officer) and Leah Martindale (Postgraduate Education Officer)

Overview of the mitigation package:

• You do not need to provide supporting evidence when submitting your extenuating circumstances
• You can self-certify for 24-hour exams and you can defer your seven-day timed assessments by using the self-certification process
• You can access an automatic one-week coursework extension on request, without evidence  
• The performance of student cohorts graduating this year will be reviewed against previous years unaffected by COVID-19  
• The methods for classifying taught postgraduate Masters’ degrees in 20/21 will be revised
• If you have Alternative Exam Arrangements you can have two days extra time to take seven-day assessments

You can view further information on the university webpages.