Broadcast: News items

Pro Vice-Chancellor Kelly Coate

On Friday 7 May, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education and Students Kelly Coate wrote to all taught students. You can read the message in full below.

Dear all students,

Please read this week’s email for updates on: 

• Assessments and academic support
• Return to campus guidance
• Hardship funding
• Covid-19 vaccination survey
• Census 2021

Assessments and academic support

The upcoming assessment period (10-29 May) is taking place online and this will also be the case for the August 2021 resit period. You can find guidance on submitting online assessments and how to access your feedback from assessments here: Submission and Feedback in Canvas: A Student Guide.

Your Academic Advisors or Academic Success Advisors and School Offices are here to help you on any academic matters – you can find contact details for your School Office here.

Exceptional Circumstances

If you have submitted an Exceptional Circumstances (EC) claim, you can usually expect to receive a response within 10 working days. Please be assured that we are processing claims as quickly as possible and you will receive direct notification when this has happened. If you have any other questions, please consult the EC guidance pages on the Student Hub.

Any changes to Semester 1 assessment grades through the scaling process will have now been completed. If this applies to you, you will have heard from your School and be able to view updates on Sussex Direct.

Return to campus guidance

We are waiting on final confirmation from the Government about Covid-19 restriction changes outlined for 17 May and how these plans affect students. Currently we understand that the majority of students (those not invited back already) will be able to return to University campuses from this date if they wish to. We will share further updates next week when the Government has announced its decision.

Hardship funding

As we approach the end of term, I’d like to remind you that you can apply for financial support from our Student Hardship Fund if you’re facing financial difficulties. This funding is available to all Sussex students and our Funding team is here to help.

You can also find a list of contact details for our range of support services on the Student Hub. Please do reach out to our teams if you have a question or would like to talk to someone about an issue.

Covid-19 vaccination survey

The campus Health Centre are keen to find out how many of our students would have a Covid-19 vaccination over the summer if they set up a vaccination site on campus.

Please help by completing a short survey, whether you are registered at the campus Health Centre or at another GP practice. We need your responses by Monday 17 May.

Your survey responses will be anonymous and will be used only to help make sure the campus Health Centre are able to put suitable vaccination arrangements in place and can cope with changing demand.

Census 2021

Finally, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has extended the Census 2021 deadline for students to Monday 17 May. For more information and details on how to fill in the census online, please visit census.gov.uk/students.

With best wishes for the assessment period,

Kelly Coate

Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education and Students