NEW LOCKDOWN RESTRICTIONS . On 4 January 2021, the Government announced a return to national lockdown and tighter restrictions to manage the spread of Coronavirus and advised that teaching should be delivered online until at least mid-February for the majority of courses. How this affects you: There is currently no access to department studio due to Lockdown restrictions. All teaching will be taking place online. Studio Review (assessment) will be done by digital submission. Please look out for emails from Chris Jones (DPD) and your module leader on the new teaching and assessment arrangements and instructions for digital submission. Working together: We are working in partnership with you through the Student rep team, Open forum and year meetings to answer questions, help to tackle any issues that arise from this situation, and develop positive solutions together. Thank you for your co-operation and help with this. Please get in touch with your reps, module leader, Irene, Nick or Chris if you have any ideas and suggestions. Returning to campus: The University will advise us on when we are able to return to campus and studios (Links below to University FAQ on returning to campus & support) This is dependent on government policy but we want to highlight that Fine Art is in the group of subjects that the University wants to support in terms of returning to the campus once this is allowed by the government and is safe. This would involve a phased return to campus. Irene & Chris will communicate any return to campus info and arrangements to you as soon as we have clear and firm information. |
NU info on Returning to Campus
NU Info on Academic Support
Info on PEC
See summary below of what was discussed in the COURSE REP meeting on 14.01.21
Hello everyone,
Irene, Nick, Henry, Jo and myself had a useful meeting with year reps yesterday and we thank all of you for feeding your questions and views through. The reps will be reporting back through their usual channels but I wanted to quickly summarise what we will be doing to follow up.
- Time – We are looking at what we can do to maximise the amount of time we can provide in Semester 2 for the production of studio work by scheduling the Exam Board as late as possible. We will provide dates once this has been confirmed.
- Materials etc.- Irene will be contacting you all to detail what is possible in terms of work, equipment and materials that can be sent out or collected, and how you can access materials via Ray – please look out for her email.
- Dissertation – We will take the issue of the dissertation deadline to the art history team and, if necessary, to Faculty for approval of any extension. We will let you know of any change as soon as we can, though Faculty approval can take a little time to confirm.
- Crits – we will wait to hear back from Reps as to whether you would like Cross-Year crits to be scheduled by the programme, offered as optional “surgery crits” or left as student-organised crits to which you can invite staff to contribute. Remember that the various Forums (‘Painting+’ etc) provide good opportunities to get together across years for discussion and feedback – info on ‘Forums’ in the menu of the Community Board: https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/fineartcommunityboard/
- Return to studios – this is dependent on government policy but Irene was able to tell the meeting that Fine Art is in the group of subjects that the University wants to support in terms of returning to the campus once this is allowed by the government and safe. It would involved a phased return and strict safe-working conditions. There is no date at present for this but both government and the University will be reviewing this as the pandemic develops. We are also optimistic that additional studio space will be made available to us later this academic year.
- Yr 4 Workshops – The suggestions from 4th Year for Photoshop and other workshops, and for graduate opportunities information, were all helpful and we will look at what can be offered and publicise these once confirmed. Some 4th Year sessions, such as statement writing, and the annual 4th Yr LWA day-conference are due to take place as usual but have had to be be rescheduled.
- PECS are the means by which individual adjustments can be made to deadlines, to request individual exam board consideration or deferral of module assessments through to August. Talk to your personal tutor, Giles as Senior Tutor, or me, if you have questions on this. PECs can address particular impact of the pandemic on individuals, but also non-pandemic related extenuating circumstances. Some in-house (Fine Art) measures, and some University-wide measures (see below) may cover some of what you feel would help support and reassure you.
Safety Net update – the University wrote to you all earlier this year to state there would be no mitigation and, as such, the idea of a Safety Net seemed unlikely. We have heard today that the University now plans to introduce Safety Net measures for 2020/21 and you will receive information on this from the University soon. We will look at the detail of this as soon as we receive it to see how we can make it work for you in terms of Fine Art as a subject area – at face-value it looks more helpful to us than last year’s.
Thanks for working together with us on all of this – we look forward to seeing everyones’ work at the forthcoming studio Reviews and 4th Year Interim Project.
As always I am happy to field questions and I hope you have a good weekend.
Best wishes,
Chris