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

Many of you will know that the Government is scheduled to make an announcement on Monday 22 February outlining how the national lockdown restrictions are to be eased. We expect that this announcement will include specific guidance for education providers and anticipate that it will outline the Government’s plans for university students’ phased return to face-to-face teaching on campus. 

After next week’s announcement, we will contact you as soon as possible to let you know how the Government’s latest guidance may influence your teaching arrangements, travel plans and the Covid-19 testing programme. Until then please stay where you are and continue to study online. Please do not make any plans to return to campus until we contact you confirming that it is safe and permitted for you to do so. 

Our priority now, as it has been throughout the pandemic, is the safety and wellbeing of our entire university community. We have audited all our teaching and social spaces to ensure we can accommodate 2m social distancing across campus. This has significant impacts on the capacity of our academic and social spaces for teaching and studying (eg library). 

Therefore, we have started to prioritise the return of students to campus for activities that are essential to academic progression which may include access to specialist facilities. With these exceptions, we anticipate that significant amounts of our teaching will need to remain online for the remainder of this term. However, working with Divisions we will continue to ensure that your stage and programme learning outcomes are met.   

For those of you who are already living back on campus or if you are accessing any campus facilities, please can I remind you it is vital you are tested regularly for Covid-19. Providing you don’t have symptoms, please ensure you get tested twice each week at our campus testing facilities at both Canterbury and Medway. You can also get tested at your nearest community facility. 

I will be in touch with you next week once we have assessed the impact of Monday’s Government announcement.  

Please also sign up to our next Student Web Chat on 3 March 2021 where we will discuss these issues in more detail.  

With best wishes,

Richard

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