It seems as if there has not been any learning from the timetabling of examinations from last year and earlier on this year during assessment block A1 for many third years (especially joint honours students and students in certain schools and departments).

As our last and most important set of assessments, having them one after another so close to the beginning of the assessment period is causing unnecessary stress and panic and is likely to have a negative impact on final grades and degree classifications. In particular, final year Joint Honours students with Economics (incl Politics, International Development and International Relations), some students from the School of English, others also in the School of Psychology (e.g. those taking the Positive Psychology module), students from Law and others from the Biomedical Sciences are encountering the same issue and are also likely to suffer.

Currently some students are set to take their final exam less than 24 hours after the dissertations are due on the 11th of May (22 hours to be precise).

We find this grossly unfair as the dates for other final year exams vary from either the 13th (no better at just under 40 hours from handing in dissertations and other critical assessments) to the 20th of May (A WHOLE WEEK LATER) depending on the module option. Exams are meant to be fair and controlled and by doing this, the university is putting some students at an obvious and distinct disadvantage in regards to their overall degree.

Knowing the outcome of last years petition, we know that changes can be made if we show a united front.We hope to collect enough names to make it difficult for the assessment office to ignore this issue.

We propose that the University changes the dates to be the same as the other courses that are weighted the same and move the exams to give more time between the deadline and exams.

Furthermore, this should contribute to building a stronger argument for the University to also consider revising assessment timetabling policy across both Assessment blocks A1 and A2 allowing the first week of all assessment blocks STRICTLY for hand ins across all year groups (e.g. essays, term papers, reports and dissertations) and subsequent weeks for exams scheduling. This would make greater sense than the current structure and will be better overall for everyone.