Our new Academic Calendar

On Monday Council approved our new Academic Calendar. The new calendar is designed around three core principles:

1. Better alignment of assessment and learning: Students have consistently asked for assessments to be closer to the time of learning. Our revised calendar responds to this directly, and these changes should significantly enhance the academic performance of our diverse student community.
2. Supporting staff research and academic activity: By reorganizing term structures and research leave entitlement periods, our academic colleagues will have more opportunities to engage in research, professional practice, or scholarly activities.
3. Meeting regulatory and sector standards: Our calendar now fully aligns with the requirements of the Office for Students (OfS), England’s regulator for higher education that ensures quality and fairness in universities and supports increased student success and engagement.

What's new in the Academic Calendar?

The proposed calendar includes three significant adjustments (.pdf).

1. Early start

The academic year will begin one week earlier.

2. Split and move Summer Term

• Exams: For those students being primarily assessed through exams, the current 10-week Summer Term, traditionally reserved for revision and exams, will be divided into two 5-week "prepare and assess" periods. These will occur immediately following our two primary 10-week teaching terms in Autumn and Spring.

• Coursework: For those students being assessed through coursework, this move will not increase teaching weeks but rather create two 15-week terms over which the current teaching loads can be scheduled. This will allow for new ways of timetabling teaching and for the potential decompression of teaching and learning pressures through the inclusion of scheduled mid-term revision, reading and/or consolidation periods. Departments could also choose to include other meaningful educational activities such as work placements, work-based learning, fieldtrips, peer learning, experiential and group work assignment completion periods, etc. as desired. Additionally, any assessment hand-ins should not be scheduled for the week after a holiday, so that students do not feel the need to revise over those periods.

3. Extended Summer Period

The summer vacation, now called the Summer Period, will start three weeks earlier, from mid-June, and will be extended by two weeks, providing a total of 15 weeks. This adjustment significantly expands opportunities for research and other scholarly pursuits. It will also give our post-graduate taught students an addition week to complete their studies over the summer.

Benefits for students and staff

These adjustments provide substantial benefits:

Students

• Closer alignment of assessments to the point of learning, aiding student learning and performance.
• Improving support and meaningful academic engagement throughout the academic year.
• Ensuring meaningful academic activity and on-campus engagement across the full academic year.

Staff

• Increasing research opportunities including longer research leave entitlements and enhanced opportunities for scholarly activity.
• Better-balanced teaching and assessment workloads throughout the year.

Institutional benefits

• Improving the alignment of calendars with our international partners.
• Maximising the potential for recruiting new students by optimising flexible learning options in line with the incoming Lifelong Learning Entitlement.
• Simplifying and unifying our internal systems, thereby enhancing administrative effectiveness and preparing for pan-University system enhancements such as those of the Academic Systems Enhancement Programme (ASEP).

How we've incorporated your feedback

These changes have been developed by colleagues across the University and extensively consulted upon. Throughout this process, your feedback has been instrumental and together we have:

• Dramatically enhanced departmental autonomy to allow flexibility in educational delivery.
• Increased research leave entitlements and summer periods to better support academic staff.
• Committed to considering workload implications as a top priority when designing, implementing and scheduling the ultimate rollout.

Next steps

Under the leadership and guidance of our new Vice-Chancellor, the Academic Calendar Steering Group will oversee the development a detailed business case and timeline for introducing the new calendar, which is currently proposed for Autumn 2027/28.

Engaging with the change

If you would like more detailed information on the proposal, the model approved by Senate and Council can be accessed on the Academic Calendar Moodle site.

I want to thank all of you who have already spent the time to engage with the development of this new Academic Calendar. I understand changes of this magnitude can raise concerns, but I look forward to approaching these developments together, motivated by their potential to enhance our academic community for students and colleagues alike.