We want to let you know that we are temporarily adjusting our term dates for 2020/21 to create flexibility in the timetable to support our social distancing measures.

While many Schools plan to deliver their curriculum to you over the usual term or semester period, other Schools may require greater flexibility to allow more time for your teaching while we all follow social distancing measures. This could mean teaching your labs, seminars, or workshops in smaller groups, shorter sessions or using one-way systems and staggering start times to reduce the risks of transmission.

We have made temporary changes to the academic year 2020/21 to make some extra weeks available for teaching and assessment by shortening the Christmas and Easter holiday periods to three weeks, and by removing the January exam period so that assessment is via coursework or open book exams.

The new 2020/21 academic year dates will be as follows:

Terms

• Autumn Term: Monday 21 September 2020 - Friday 18 December 2020
• Spring Term: Monday 11 January 2021 - Friday 26 March 2021
• Summer Term: Monday 19 April 2021 - Friday 18 June 2021

Semesters

• Semester 1: Monday 21 September 2020 - Friday 30 January 2021
• Semester 2: Monday 1 February 2021 - Friday 18 June 2021

Please rest assured you will still receive the same number of teaching hours as planned, but some of these for some students may be timetabled over the extended term. We will also ensure that this does not affect your planned accommodation and meal arrangements. Your Schools will inform you if they intend to use the additional teaching weeks in due course.

We are also exploring whether we can be more flexible in the length of the teaching day or week in order to provide more capacity for Schools to deliver your teaching. Again, your Schools will let you know if they need to do this.

The health and safety of our student community remains at the heart of our planning and we cannot wait to welcome you back onto campus in September.