Loughborough Postgraduate Student Safety Net 2021/22

We have already committed to:

• ensuring nothing that we do disadvantages a student in respect of their degree outcome;
• giving students the opportunity to undertake online and/or in-person assessments as appropriate to demonstrate their learning and graduate with a degree which they can be proud of;
• upholding the standards of Loughborough University, as required by our regulatory bodies, and ensure that employers will continue to recognise the quality of your degrees.

The Loughborough Postgraduate Taught Safety Net is designed to help all students, in a consistent way, ensuring everyone is treated fairly this academic year.

The Loughborough Safety Nets were used successfully during the 2019/20 and 2020/21 academic years and were able to support students appropriately. Therefore, we have decided to roll the Safety Nets forwards for 2021/22 to ensure that we continue to do all we can to support our students to succeed.

Some minor changes have been made to reflect the higher levels of disruption in previous years and the adjustments to teaching and assessment design that we have been able to put in place in advance this year. We have been able to plan for a mixture of online and in-person exams and the University’s campuses have been open.

Our absolute priorities are two-fold. First, to ensure students can meet the learning outcomes of their programmes and to graduate within broadly a similar timeframe this academic year. Second, to maintain standards so that your qualification is a true reflection of your ability and continues to be recognised by employers and others for its academic credibility and value.

We will keep the Safety Nets under review during the academic year and, if needed, will make further modifications in response to the national situation.

Safety net 1

Marks for every module will be reviewed and adjusted if necessary.

We will examine the marks for every module this year and adjust them if necessary to ensure they are consistent with the typical variation expected when comparing to the performance of previous cohorts. In doing this, we will take account of the national standards for the discipline and ensure that pass marks reflect the fact that students have achieved the module learning outcomes being assessed.

Note – Where modules are new or have significant changes this year, they will be considered in the light of performance on similar types of modules at the same level.

Safety Net 2

Students who claim mitigating circumstances can have these taken into account.

Any student can continue to claim Mitigating Circumstances in the usual way if their situation presents particular difficulties which we have not been able to adequately address in advance working with them. All claims will be viewed fairly and sympathetically. 

You need to explain the impact of the circumstances on your studies in as much detail as you can. You should provide supporting evidence if you are able to, but we recognise this might not be possible in some cases – please do submit the claim anyway. Please check out the further details for examples and support. 

Safety Net 3

Overall grades for cohorts this year will be consistent with previous cohorts.

We will examine the overall outcome for the cohort of students on every programme and ensure that the marks are consistent with the typical variation expected when comparing to the performance of previous cohorts.

Note – Where degree programmes are new or have significant changes this year, they will be considered in the light of performance on similar types of programmes at the same level.

Safety Net 4

For continuing or part time students who took modules in Semester 2 2019/20, we will ensure that degree outcomes are in line with the result that you could reasonably have expected based on previous and future achievement. We will consider, in particular, the marks obtained in Semester 2 2019/20 in the context of those obtained in other Semesters and years.

If a student does not satisfy the University’s General Regulations (Regulation XXI) for the award of postgraduate degrees after consideration through Safety Nets 1-3, then opportunities for reassessment will be provided in line with our normal procedures to enable them to gain the necessary credit.