University 2020-2021 Part 11: Final Furlong For First year Freshers..........Then Freedom Follows

[sammyjoanne]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/4058013-University-2020-10-Empty-nests-warm-vests-and-covid-tests-uni-parents-2020?pg=20

This is a follow on from the previous part 10 thread.
Named because its heading into the summer term.
''Freedom follows'' as in end of year for summer break, (hopefully end of covid restrictions too)

Marking my place for a a summer of freedom for our students.
Thanks for the new thread

Marking my place too!

Ditto

Thanks for organising @sammyjoanne !

Thanks, sammyjoanne.

Welcome :) Im just happy were all keeping this going. I joined at 'part 9 make hay whilst the sun shines' back in September last year, so have no idea how long this threads been going on for lol.

So Dd got told on Tuesday that face to face teaching starts back today! Half her cohort aren’t in the uni town and are scrambling to get back.

Dd lives at home and commutes to uni. However she’s shielding until the end of the month. Online teaching has been working well but has now stopped. Dd has pointed out she’s shielding and they said they won’t do anything online just for her. 🙄

Great that F2F teaching is starting again for some. DD has 2 weeks of online teaching left then exams in May and that's 1st year complete.

Worryingly her uni (Edinburgh) as saying that lectures may be online again in September. They think they will only be able to do F2F when numbers are less than 60-100 students. DD studies social sciences so has low contact hours. If lectures are online then she'll have 2-3 hours per week of F2F over the entire year. It is hardly worth her being in her uni city. She's hanging off sorting out accomodation to see how things pan out and to get a clear statement from her department

@NuclearDH what uni is your DD at? Hopefully they should be wearing masks if they are doing f2f teaching. My DD has had all online this term (physics) and she went up before the Jan 4th lockdown so she has her own desk to study as she cant do it at home. She doesnt mind but would much prefer f2f teaching.
@ClerkMaxwell dont blame your DD for holding off for accommodation. No one knows whats going off. I would imagine it should be back to normal in September if the vaccine programme is successful.

Anyone's DC heard anything about labs and F2F at Bristol. DS was looking forward to the engineering practical and he's had 1.

@sammyjoanne, I joined on the first thread for university 2020 in 2019 and was the OP on threads 2-9. Originally it was a GCSE thread on secondary ed maybe 20 threads long starting in 2016, started by others that I’m still in touch with.

I’d rather not name the uni. I’m sure they will be wearing masks but if she’s shielding then she’s shielding and can’t go even wearing a mask.

@ClerkMaxwell

Great that F2F teaching is starting again for some. DD has 2 weeks of online teaching left then exams in May and that's 1st year complete.

Worryingly her uni (Edinburgh) as saying that lectures may be online again in September. They think they will only be able to do F2F when numbers are less than 60-100 students. DD studies social sciences so has low contact hours. If lectures are online then she'll have 2-3 hours per week of F2F over the entire year. It is hardly worth her being in her uni city. She's hanging off sorting out accomodation to see how things pan out and to get a clear statement from her department

With all over 18s vaccinated by end aug how can they justify that?!

It seems that ds was actually quite lucky to get two seminars a week f2f in the autumn term, especially as it was history. Unfortunately none for Spanish. I would imagine it's quite hard learning a language on zoom. Really hoping they'll get something next term. When was Boris planning on announcing return for rest of uni students? Was it after Easter?

@NuclearDH, don’t they do lecture capture as standard?

@SusannahSophia wow did not realise they went that far back.
@Mrsbrownsgargoyle Not sure on engineering, but Dd does physics at Lancaster and her labs from this term, were all pushed to first term, however out of those labs 5 were in person, 5 were online. She may get a couple of labs in the summer term, but thats the only f2f teaching shes had so far. Its been all online this term.
@NuclearDH I hope they do sort something out for dd, even if its lecture capture. Surely they should take her shielding into consideration. Fingers crossed all these vaccines helps stop the spread and everything goes back to some sort of normality :)
@specialted it was after Easter for the rest of the students. DD coming back two weeks tomorrow.

[quote SusannahSophia]@NuclearDH, don’t they do lecture capture as standard?[/quote]
No, it’s a studio based subject so no lectures.

SusannahSophia is right. I think we started the GCSE threads in the summer of year 10, then they moved onto the FE board and ended up here when our DC started applying to uni. At one point we thought we could challenge The Archers threads for longevity. I tend to read this one rather than post these days.

I saw a post on wiwikau showing Boris saying he will Make a decision about students returning in may after Easter. Surely if the shops are opening in April they have to let students return??? I really worry he's going to write off the students till September.

He said that they will make a decision after Easter about whether students will return in May or September. Talk about moving the goal posts. He thanked students and reminded them that they might be able to access £70m hardship funds.

twitter.com/10DowningStreet/status/1370688692625489921?s=19

I suspect the students will go back anyway and make the most of pub gardens being open etc if the uni bars are closed!

Why May? Doesn’t summer term start in April?

Or is he thinking something to coincide with the next phase of opening in May. If so there wouldn’t be much of term left

If it’s that late some unis won’t open for more face to face as it’s too complicated to organise in the time frame. BJ and the education dept know that. Students have paid so very low on everyone’s priorities

He seems to be putting students below non essential retail (12 April) and either in the same league as indoor hospitality (17 May) or possible below the FA Cup & Reading Festival (if he goes for September).