Considering the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, we believe that students are not in a good position to be sitting exams.

> Many have poor immune systems and other health conditions which render them at risk of acquiring infection. This may put them in a poor mental state thus making exams excessively difficult even if they stay healthy.

> There is also a great proportion of students living with parents who are in high risk groups which may make them concerned and unable to focus during the proposed online assessments.

> As everyone is well aware, schools for all age groups have been shut to maintain the spread of the virus. Taking this into consideration, students and lecturers alike are now having to homeschool their children. Sitting an online exam would be very difficult for those students as they are very likely to have a struggle getting their children to stay absolutely quiet and put for an extended period of time. As for lecturers, having to mark so many exam papers while simultaneously homeschooling their kids would put an elaborate amount of strain on them and may negatively impact their health let alone work capacity.

> Not all students as well as lecturers have access to internet/ a suitable device such as a laptop or a stationary computer at home thus they would be in a bind to sit (students) and mark (lecturers) the said exams. This would arise from the fact that internet cafes are not accessible to ensure follow through of the social distancing which has been put in place.

> We must remember that some of our students are also the highly demanded NHS staff which are more busy during the ongoing pandemic than they would of bargained to be. It would be very devastating to these students to miss out on a grade they wanted because their revision time has been spent keeping the nation running by looking after the poorly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to ensure that everyone receives a grade for each end of year exam, we suggest to average exam grades based on grades the student has been receiving for the according module throughout the year. E.g. if student has received averaged 70% on all assignments completed throughout the year for module X,award them 70% of total marks available in the module X exam. We believe that this would also fairly reflect the effort that the student has put in throughout the year.

However, there are bound to be some students unhappy with received grade. To ensure that everyone had a fair chance at achieving the grade they want, we suggest to let those students who wish to possibly improve their mark sit the exam during the re-sit period with no cap for available score. This is in hopes that by then the pandemic will hopefully have subsided and the students are in better mental state to sit exams as well as the lecturers are in a better position to mark them.

To reflect on that, many universities in US and some other countries have completely cancelled exams and awarded every student a pass to ensure that their top priority is health of their students and staff rather than official formalities.