Fair Outcomes for Students Campaign

Fair outcomes for students is our campaign to ensure students get the best deal for their exams and assessment in 2021 and beyond. Students studies have been signifcantly disrupted by covid-19 and the University must recognise this. See the full information about the project on our dedicated webpage here.

What have we done so far?

Following our calls to the university to commit to rescaling and/or reweighting all exams and assessment in Hilary and Trinity 2021, we’re pleased to see that the University has released details on their plans for mandatory rescaling across all cohort.

Paper averages adjusted:

This policy, which is outlined on the Coronavirus Teaching & Learning page of the University’s website, guarantees that paper averages for medium and large cohorts which are below a small average range will be brought in line to the pre-pandemic average. Furthermore, special guidance has been issued to examiners regarding preventing a downturn in the number of firsts from pre-pandemic years and preventing failure in first preliminary examination.  

University will accept 'explanatory statements'

For students with certain coursework submissions, the university has also indicated that it will allow for the submission of explanatory statements which highlight any barrier they’ve faced in completing their work. These will be provided to examiners during the marking phase, which means they will have an impact directly on student marks, not just classifications.  

Improvements to Mitigating Circumstances process

Finally, after our calls for a better mitigating circumstances process, the University has agreed to make the process easier for students, by removing the need to provide independent medical evidence, and removing the need for students to seek and gain college approval for submitting Mitigating Circumstances notices to Examiners (MCEs).