Oxford Brookes announces face-to-face teaching will not return until at least 8 March

Oxford Brookes have emailed students today to confirm today that face-to-face teaching will not resume until 8 March at the earliest.

In an email sent to students today, the university said: “You may be aware of the Government’s announcement yesterday, that schools and colleges in England will not return to full face-to-face education until 8 March at the earliest. The Government has since confirmed that this also applies to higher education, and therefore all university students should continue their studies remotely until 8 March at the earliest. Only those students on courses previously permitted to return to campus will continue with face-to-face teaching for now.”

The email went on to say: “Once we receive confirmation from the Government that face-to-face teaching on campus can restart for more students, we will give you at least one week’s notice while the University updates student timetables and Google Calendars. In the meantime, you should remain where you are and continue to engage with your online learning as planned.”

The email also covered wellbeing at the university: “Please be assured we are doing all that we can to ensure your safety and wellbeing and deliver the best education and student experience possible in what continues to be very difficult circumstances. Colleagues across the University are working hard to support you throughout the semester. Please reach out if you need their help through Wellbeing and the other University student support services.”

The university also confirmed the new service that students can use for wellbeing: “Students are also now able to take advantage of a free online support service called Togetherall, which provides access to free resources, creative tools, courses and peer support. The service is anonymous, is available 24/7 and is a safe place to talk. More details, including how to login, can be found on the student support webpage.”

The email also went to confirm details about timetables for students: “In light of this announcement, we are now in a position to confirm the teaching timetable for weeks 4, 5 and 6. These will be added to students’ Google calendars within the next few days.
For all of your timetabled sessions, please look at your Moodle sites for exact timings and set information to ensure that you are joining the correct teaching session, as the move to larger online class sets from smaller face-to-face class sets will mean that some students may have further changes to their timetable.

They also said: “To ensure that we can adjust timetables quickly in response to any further Government announcements, we will continue to release timetables in stages, as we continue to receive information from the Government on what face-to-face teaching is permitted.”

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