Attendance Policy changes

Wednesday 6 February 2013

Following consultation and feedback from the student body, some amendments have been made to the Attendance Monitoring Policy and these has been communicated to the students last week.

The principles of the Attendance Monitoring Policy remain the same, with the following key changes:

Students are expected to attend all classes from their scheduled start time.

Students will now need to swipe their student card on the card reader from 15 minutes before and up to 15 minutes after the start of their class in order to be marked present for that session. This replaces the previous policy of up to 20 minutes before and 10 minutes after the scheduled start time. Students who register for their class outside of this 30 minute window will not be recorded as present.

Students will no longer receive a notification upon their first instance of absence. Instead, the notification will be sent upon a second instance of absence. This notification will remind students of their responsibilities to attend class and that in the event of a third absence, they will face possible withdrawal from the module.

Why have changes been made?

These changes have been made as a result of feedback, and whilst the time limit has increased to 15 minutes to allow for exceptional circumstances, as an institution we expect students to make every effort to arrive to class on time. This ensures that they have full exposure to all of the teaching material, and it also prevents an unnecessary disruption to both staff and students.

Students are encouraged to seek support from the University’s available services to help them overcome any issues they may have with their programme that may be leading to any attendance issues.

Support services include Student Health and Wellbeing, Student Money Advice and Rights Team, and the disability and Dyslexia Unit. Further details can be found at; http://www.uel.ac.uk/studentservices/ .

Additionally, The Students’ Union is also available to provide advice and support to students throughout their time at the University, details about their services can be found at http://www.uelsu.org

The slightly revised attendance policy including the key changes detailed above can be found at; http://www.uel.ac.uk/attendancepolicy/