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Latest guidance on national lockdown – 12 January 2021

From Professor Richard Reece | Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education and Student Experience

Latest guidance on national lockdown 

Following my latest email to you and last week’s Student WebChat, we have received further guidance on what the Government’s latest lockdown restrictions mean for universities and for you.

The main message of the lockdown is that you must stay at home apart from in a small number of exceptional circumstances. The UK Government has declared this lockdown in England in order to control the spread of new-variant Covid-19, and reducing travel and social contact are key to that.

There are exceptional circumstances for Higher Education contained in the guidance, and these are now included in our new set of Spring return and travel FAQs. You should only travel to your term-time address if you meet one of these criteria and it is absolutely necessary. Students who have already returned should remain at their term-time address and follow the guidance provided.

Rent reduction 

Included in the FAQs are details of the University’s Spring term rent reduction scheme for those on the Canterbury campus and further information for those in Pier Quays at Medway. In addition, we are committed to supporting Kent Union in their work representing those of you in private accommodation.

Academic mitigation and support

We remain committed to ensuring that no student is disadvantaged by the pandemic using our academic mitigation processes. We are currently updating our ‘no detriment’ processes and will continue to offer flexibility in applications for mitigation to ensure that we can support your needs as quickly as possible.

In addition, whilst we expect most students to meet their current coursework deadlines, students with deadlines between now and the end of the second week of term (29 January) who have been unable to submit will now be given an additional week’s extension automatically. For further academic support or advice, please contact your academic school.

Weekly Student WebChats and regular communications 

Thank you to those of you who have asked questions about the current situation and provided feedback over the last week including during last week’s WebChat. We are working to complete answers to all those questions in line with the latest Government guidance.

So that we can hear from you more regularly and keep you up to date, we are now arranging weekly Student WebChats. Please sign up for the next one on Wednesday 13 January 2021.

We have also introduced a new feature to our sign-up form where you can ask questions in advance to help us address as many points as we can on the day.

In addition to the WebChats, I will be contacting you more regularly over the next few weeks and we will continue updating our website as often as we can. Please do continue to email CovidSupport@kent.ac.uk with any urgent enquiries and we will respond as soon as possible.

My very best wishes to you, your friends and your family.

Richard

Professor Richard Reece | Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education and Student Experience