Tuesday 21-12-2021 - 15:30

As your Education Officers, we have been working hard over TB1 to ensure that arrangements for exams are clear and consistent, and that any necessary changes to assessments would be communicated to students with sufficient time to allow those impacted to adequately prepare and adjust.  

It is therefore disappointing to us that students will once again experience late revisions and disruptions to their exams. This is despite us raising concerns to the University relating to the current spike in Covid cases, and other concerns bought to us by members of the student body.  

Though the University has now allowed Schools to revise the format of their in-person assessments, we believe this decision has been made far too late, and undoubtedly impacts the wellbeing of students involved. Whilst the national increase in covid cases is outside of the university’s control, we are incredibly concerned that some students were only informed of a change to their exams during the last week of term. It is completely unacceptable that some students will remain uncertain of the format of their exams until 6th January, a mere four days before the start of the assessment period.  

The lack of suitable provisions for exams, given the experiences of the last academic year, and the unpredictability of the ongoing pandemic, is deeply troubling. We understand and share your frustrations, and will continue to speak with relevant university stakeholders on this issue, bringing in relevant topics such as assessment mitigations for those impacted by the ongoing changes to assessments. Since the initial changes were announced last week, the university have guaranteed to us that further information will be provided to students as and when new Covid guidance and regulations are announced by the government. 

If you are concerned about how this will affect your wellbeing, or need access to wellbeing support over the winter break then you can still access the university wellbeing services: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/students/support/wellbeing/  

We hope that you have a lovely winter break, and take some time to focus on whatever brings you joy!  

Seb and Lu (Undergraduate and Postgraduate Education Officers)