Welcome to our April 2020 Education Group update.

Dear colleagues

A slightly different look to our newsletter this time, for understandable reasons. When we were planning out the phases of our response to what was then an emerging pandemic, this “peak phase” was always the most difficult to face up to. We all probably know of someone who has been severely affected by Covid-19, and a number of colleagues across our Group have been bereaved in recent days. There is a grim fascination with the medical data published daily and it is difficult to escape the wall-to-wall media coverage. Nobody knows what restrictions will stay in place or for how long. Everyone has had a “dip” in morale at some point by now too, and many of us have growing doubts that we are doing a “proper job” (whatever that was). Sometimes the hardest and most frustrating part is not being able to do the work you know you could be doing or are really good at. That’s especially true for those of you who would usually be running programmes across this term, seeing the positive outcomes that they have and sharing in the success of participants. These are understandable and normal reactions to a really abnormal set of circumstances. Whether it is by scanning your emails once a day, agreeing to be furloughed, having a Teams chat to see how your friends and colleagues are – this is all worthwhile and absolutely crucial to keeping that vital sense of community together – the University continues to exist and thrive through these interactions, irrespective of geography.

Others across Education Group have been working in across a variety of projects to deliver some new and innovative ways of teaching, learning, assessment, recruitment and co-curricular activities. Without lots of committees to go through, decision-making has been swift and so in very short order we have been able to develop:

• a large Virtual Offer Holder Open Day, deploying digital resources to excite and inform potential students
• great cross-team working between EPQ, SAS and colleagues in ITS and academic departments to deliver the Alternative Examinations Portal, alternative assessments to replace just under 1,000 assessments, and a fully-populated timetable. This has drawn in dozens of colleagues at very short notice to completely reconceptualise how we are delivering exams to ensure we can graduate our students on time
• many involved in the development and implementation of the Warwick Online Learning Certificate for 1^st year undergraduates (over 3,600 have signed up for this!)
• virtual Widening Participation initiatives, skills sessions, career guidance, intercultural training, Global Connections – in fact, virtual versions of pretty much everything we usually do!
• processing thousands of admissions documents, off-campus, at a time when no-one quite knows what the next academic year will bring!
• supporting our students to provide hardship, visa and immigration advice
• ensuring student loan payments and other awards are processed accurately and on-time
• communicating with and reassuring our diverse student community, including PGR students and those on Degree Apprenticeships
• managing a growing number of complex complaints
• supporting students who remain overseas, and helping repatriate those we can
• and lots, lots more….

Not bad for just over a month working from home. But whether you are busy, or not-so-busy, remember to find something purposeful to do every day – whether it is professional, domestic, or voluntary – and take note of what you have done.

If you’re still really bored you can always update yourself on some of the mandatory online training we have especially Information Security and GDPR that we must do every 12 months. Seriously, this is really important, especially following the ICO visit to campus earlier in the year and a report with over 100 recommendations, of which many related to the need not just to complete the training but to understand and apply it.

Finally, to lighten the mood we asked you to send in some examples of what working from home has been like – so enjoy the examples sent in Behind the screens. As long as we can still smile, we will all get through this.

Best wishes to you and your loved ones,

Chris

If you have any suggestions or feedback on how we can improve the Group Update, do drop me a line at academicregistrar@warwick.ac.uk.