Newcastle Uni has announced they will be introducing a ‘safety net policy’ for undergraduate and integrated masters programmes.

The university has released information on their “Coronavirus FAQ’s page” detailing that the safety net will take marks already achieved in semester one of 2019-2020.

The university has also said that they will calculate your individual ‘baseline average’ for 2019-2020 based on those marks and they “guarantee” that each student’s academic average for the year 2019-2020 or for their final year is no lower than this, provided that students pass the year.

“Our Safety Net will therefore take all marks up to and including Semester 1 assessments in 2019-20 as being a secure measure of student attainment.

“We will then calculate your individual ‘baseline average’ for 2019-20 based on those marks and guarantee that each student’s academic average for the year 2019-20 or for their final year average is no lower than this provided that students meet the learning outcomes for their programme by achieving the normal requirements in respect of the amount of credit awarded for their Semester 2 modules.

“In other words, you need to pass your remaining modules for the Safety Net to apply at the end of the academic year.”

How will your baseline average be calculated?

On the university website, it states that depending on your stage of study, marks will be calculated slightly differently. The university has confirmed that students will know their ‘baseline average’ the week commencing 27th April 2020.

“We are currently compiling and processing all the data that we need to produce your baseline average under our Safety Net.  We will make this available to you in the first week of the Summer Term – the week commencing Monday 27 April 2020.

“As with all marks, the baseline average will be a provisional mark, which will be confirmed by the Board of Examiners after internal moderation and external examiner consideration.”

“Our Safety Net allows us to take account of your performance up to the end of semester 1 of 2019-20, when considering your assessed work at the end of the academic year, to help mitigate the impact of the situation on your academic performance.”

They have also said this introduction “allows you to focus on doing the best you can on your forthcoming assessments in the challenging situation of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

It follows after Northumbria announced they were introducing a ‘no detriment policy’ to their students, last week.

All of the information Newcastle have released on the ‘safety net policy’ can be found on their website.

Know something? Send tips to [email protected]

Want to break stories like this? Join the team, no experience required. DM us via @TheTabNewcastle on Instagram or The Tab Newcastle on Facebook.