Dear ,

In light of the introduction of a third national lockdown earlier this week and mindful that we have been renegotiating life as we know it (again), there is one decision that we would like to communicate ahead of the start of the new term.

We have taken the decision to push back all assignment deadlines for the coming term by two weeks, meaning that assingments due in Epiphany Term (January-March) will now have a later submission date than originally published. Revised deadlines will be reflected in your assignment schedules and in the assignment submission links on Moodle by the middle of next week. This change will also mean that marked assignments will be returned two weeks later than originally expected.

Our hope is that this will provide the initial easing many students need in adjusting to the present season, as well as creating flexibility for the remainder of the term to come in view of your circumstances and welfare.

The usual extension application process will continue to be open to you should the need for a further two week extension beyond this delayed deadline arise and issues relating to the impact of lockdown will be considered. This includes last-minute extension requests, which we will make greater provision for during the lockdown. In this way we hope to provide students with a similar level of flexibility to previous lockdown situations. If you need to seek further support and mitigation beyond these arrangements please do speak to your Formation Tutor to explore this.

I hope you will join me both in praying for both students and staff this term, and in exercising kindness and support to all those submitting and marking assessments and engaging in the life of the St Mellitus more broadly over the coming weeks.

God Bless, Russell

Revd Russell Winfield, Dean