Academic progress

Supporting your academic progress

The MB ChB course is an accelerated programme designed to prepare you to qualify as a doctor in four years rather than the traditional five years of training. This means that it is intensive, challenging but also highly rewarding. You will experience new ways of working and a breadth of learning experiences impossible to find in any other subject. Our aim is to support you to meet these new academic and clinical challenges so that you progress successfully through each phase of the course.

Contact the team

CPG Chair: Louise Davis (L.Davis.3@warwick.ac.uk), office MD0.17.
Deputy CPG Chair: Helen Jones (H.Jones.6@warwick.ac.uk), office A0.35.
Student Support Officer: Morna Woods (M.M.Woods@warwick.ac.uk), office MD0.19.

CPG Chair

CPG (Course Progress Group)

Louise Davis

Academic Progress

Progression criteria

In order to progress from one year of the course to the next year students must demonstrate to the Board of Examiners that they have fulfilled all the progression criteria.

What evidence is needed?

Pass end of year exams
Complete all engagement criteria
- Attendance
- Formative assessments
- Written assignments

Detailed information:

Progression criteria and deadlines for engagement tasks 22/23 - all Phases (Word document) - updated 24th November 2022.

Submitting mitigating circumstances

During the course of your study you may experience exceptional unforeseen short term circumstances which are outside of your control and might have a detrimental effect on your studies and fulfilment of engagement criteria. Some students have a late identification of a disability and so reasonable adjustments to assessment may not be in place. Both scenarios are dealt with through the University's mitigating circumstances procedure. It is important that you always tell your Personal Tutor/Clinical Personal Tutor of any mitigating circumstances or reasonable adjustment needs as early as possible to ensure that appropriate support is put in place.

If you feel you have mitigating circumstances you can ask for these to be considered for summative assessments and non-completion of engagement criteria. Your Personal Tutor/Clinical Personal Tutor can advise you on submitting mitigation.

Submitting mitigation

Details of the impact on you: When, how, what?
Evidence of the circumstance and impact.
Supporting statement from your personal tutor.

Mitigating Circumstances Supporting Statement (Word doc)

Mitigation claims must be submitted via Tabula.

Further information

The university's policy and procedure on mitigating circumstances is available here - please note the update on submitting mitigation related to Covid-19.

A Tabula guide on how to declare mitigating circumstances

Mitigating Circumstances: Advice for Students

visual representation of the process of submitting mitigation (details are in text of webpages)

Pastoral and academic support

Everyone, at sometime during the course, feels overwhelmed by the amount they have to learn. Your personal tutor/clinical personal tutor is usually your first port of call, but you can also contact the deputy senior tutor for your phase (see Meet the Team pages for contact details)

Here are some other people and services you can contact if you need support to help you progress:

Block, Theme and Phase Leads: see your cohort Moodle pages for their contact details.
University Wellbeing Support Services: this page provided details on a wide range of support services available to you.
Undergraduate Skills and Development Programme: check out these webpages for information on study skills support including note-taking, revision and speed reading.
Student Union: offers a wide range of advice and support.

We support you academic progress in a number of ways:

Personal tutors/clinical personal tutors: are here to provide you with individual academic and pastoral support. They are supported by the Deputy Senior Tutor for your year and by a Senior Tutor. You can discuss your progress with them and any barriers or circumstances that are affecting your learning or engagement with the course. They will signpost you to individuals or services that can offer you support.

Block and Theme Leads: are available if you need information about a block or theme, or have questions about block or theme material. Their contact details are on block or theme Moodle page.

Phase Leads: coordinate the phase programme, oversee will be academic progress of students in their phase. They are available to meet with you if you need further academic advice.

The Course Progress Group provides another tier of academic support. One of its main roles is to have an overview of academic progress across all years of the course. If a student appears to be struggling to learn or progress, or to meet the engagement criteria, it will check that appropriate support mechanisms are in place, and where necessary identify any additional support required, signpost students to appropriate means of support and notify students of any action they need to take.

Reasonable adjustments

So that we can make sure that the appropriate support is in place for you it is important that you always inform us of your reasonable adjustment needs as early as possible.

Students are encouraged to register with Disability Services and meet with a member of the Disability, or the Mental Health and Wellbeing Team to discuss what reasonable adjustments may be helpful to enable a student to engage with their course. Adjustments are considered on an individual basis and considered in the context of the impact of a disability or learning difference, University policies and the Equality Act (2010).

Information on reasonable adjustments for studying and examinations is available here:

Reasonable adjustment for examinations must be approved prior to the reasonable adjustment deadlines set by the MBChB examinations team (usually 4 weeks ahead of each diet of summative examinations). For more information regarding the process, please contact the MBChB Examinations Admin Lead.