University of Nottingham to suspend MFL and Music for new students.

[HPFA]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly9zwqvn53o

Also some undefined changes to nursing courses.

I'd be interested in seeing the stats on whether training nurses at universities is more or less expensive than training them in hospitals. A NHS trust local-ish to me can't recruit trainee nurses on degree apprenticeships as they don't have the money to employ staff to supervise them.

I think Nottingham news is getting so
much attention as older pope perceive it as a decent uni and if it’s happening at Nottingham how bad must things be.
From a parental point of view I think whole sector needs a shake up. Move to only applying grades in hand. All the faffing with open days, offer days, clearing, last minute accommodation allocation, must cost unis a fortune.
Look at structure. Are 2 year courses viable. I know there’s other factors than face to face tuition but my dc’s last lecture yr1 was end of March. All done with exams by mid May. Yet I was paying accommodation all year. Accommodation prices are so high that model isn’t viable.
Nursing. My dc’s friend is adult nursing. In uni accommodation yr1 costing over 10,000 a year. Yet barely in uni and not much scope for taking advantage of student life as bulk of year spent commuting to placements. It would have been much more sensible for her to live in a nurses home attached to the hospital but of course that doesn’t exist.
There is also a need for a discussion re value of some courses and entry standards. I recruit and have had CVs from yp from a uni ranked over 100 in league tables for law, accepted on course with a grade 4 English GCSE. Makes me so angry they have effectively taken money from a kids in a deprived town under false pretences, there’s zero chance of that person securing a legal job.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93xwdwrxn5o?app-referrer=deep-link

Leicester is also considering scrapping courses including foreign languages.

I thought universities and grades are blanked out "to be fair"

That depends entirely on the employer. Some will do blind recruitment, others will not.

Fair enough

Not at all. I see full application nothing blind. No AI or initial HR sift.
Lots of legal recruitment specifically asks for A level grades (we don’t) eg AAB or ABB.

Leicester have confirmed this week they are closing the MFL department (as in no new admissions, current courses will run to completion).

Thank you for letting me know.

Would you immediately discard an application from a low ranked uni if their uni grades were poor as well?

Not quite. They say they are consulting on closing MFL and Film Studies to new entrants from 2026 onwards. I mean, we all know where these consultations end up, but formally the decision has not yet been taken.

Worth noting also that Chemistry, History, Geography and Geology staff are among those whose posts are at risk at Leicester.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93xwdwrxn5o

No I don’t drill down on grades on degree course just look at classification - a minute or two a cv is initial sift.
Just being clear a low ranked uni wasn’t reason for rejection it was one part of the whole poor cv/weak application.
I have someone in team who will qualify next year who went to a low ish ranked ex poly but had a first class degree and relevant paid work and oodles of work experience, academic prizes, positions of responsibility at uni etc.

Understood thanks.

MFL and Music are really valuable courses.

@Paq The degree nurses work whilst doing the degree. They are supervised too. Maybe the alternative scheme is a step too far? Degree nurses don’t spend much time on academics. My friend whose dd did a nursing degree (she’s non degree nurse) was appalled.

@OhDear111i know I trained in 1987 and I certainly don’t look at it with rose tinted glasses. We were abused by hospital consultants routinely. Sexually on one occasion in my case whilst I was turning a patient. We were put into multiple unsafe situations, one of them so badly I suffered PTSD. There was little or no support which is now offered to students through university. So do I think we should return to those days. Definitely not and neither does our professional body thankfully!

Grim times @restoration13 - I am so sorry for the staff affected. And while the consultation grinds on to its inevitable conclusion, the doomed courses remain open for the 2026 applications cycle.

@thankgoditssaturday Well thst didn’t happen to any middle aged nurses I know and it’s not really related to training and of course abuse at work can happen now. A degree doesn’t prevent that as far as I know. Of course professions want degrees. They don’t pay for them though do they?

The music course and department was fantasic when I was there 15ish years ago. It also added so much to the uni overall and meant student who are musical but not studying music could get involved with ensembles and choirs etc. devastating

The loss of the music course is a real shame indeed.

However, a music course at the uni is not essential for ensembles to exist. There is no music degree at Warwick but there is a very active programme of ensembles – DD and I spoke at length to an active member about it at the open day.

And in fact if there is a strong music dept, being in the ensembles can be daunting for non-music students – friend of DD's was at Brum (not studying music) and found that their grade 5 instrument was not good enough. Not that that is a reason not to have a music dept obvs; more like a reason to have specific ensembles for those not studying music.

I absolutely agree that some universities have fantastic musical opportunities without offering music as a degree. However, the transition towards that could be tricky, particularly if Nottingham gets rid of music facilities.
I confess to an interest here as DD is very musical and has an offer for Nottingham for a course which isn’t being scrapped. She was feeling pretty positive about Nottingham, but if choirs and ensembles and music facilities are going to reduce over the next few years then it makes it a much less attractive option for her.

I think this is the problem. People say 'Close all these mickey mouse courses' but everyone's idea of what a 'mickey mouse' course is is different. Are Music and MFL useless courses? They may not directly lead to jobs in translating or in an orcestra but transferable skills are far more useful in an environment where no one knows what the jobs market is like.

@RainbowBagels Any reasonable person knows these are academic courses. They aren’t vocational like medicine. Nottingham just isn’t attracting enough students and good academic mfl courses are now reducing. It’s a hard subject!

Mickey Mouse - for most reasonable thinking people is where very low grade A levels are accepted to keep bums on seats and employers don’t value. We could do with converting these to Diploms level 2 year courses.

Absobloodylutely! That's what this country feels like. We treat our young people with contempt. It seems the whole system, from student loans through university and work is designed to keep older people entertained by Slagging off young people.

Nursing. My dc’s friend is adult nursing. In uni accommodation yr1 costing over 10,000 a year. Yet barely in uni and not much scope for taking advantage of student life as bulk of year spent commuting to placements. It would have been much more sensible for her to live in a nurses home attached to the hospital but of course that doesn’t exist.

50% of her course will be theory at university, that’s an nmc requirement. NHS course students can also take advantage of a funded dual accommodation scheme. She can stay in nurses accommodation (every hospital I know has accommodation, though I accept I don’t know every hospital) and claim the extra accommodation costs back at the end of the month.