You may have heard that UCU’s Higher Education Committee has called off the national marking and assessment boycott. However, our local UCU branch’s mandate for industrial action runs until the 30 September 2023 and as such the marking and assessment boycott finishes at King’s on this date.

Most of our academic staff are carrying out marking and assessment, and the majority of our students will have received exam and assessment results on time. Whilst it is possible that some students may experience a delay in receiving some marks, we are doing everything we can to ensure that any delayed marking is prioritised and completed.

The two key principles for King’s are that no student should experience any detriment as a result of the boycott, and that academic standards are fully maintained.

What King’s is doing

• We are doing everything we can to ensure that this industrial action does not impact on students’ studies and progress from a pre-sessional foundation course onto the main degree or from one year of study to the next, or to being awarded and graduating as expected, as long as the requirements of their course are met.
• Our assessment boards will continue to ensure final marks reflect the student’s academic achievements and how they have met programme learning outcomes.
• Any programme with Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Body progression regulations will be subject to specific focus to ensure we continue to meet their requirements.
• All individual cases that fall outside the university’s general guidance will be considered to ensure consistency and fairness to all our students.

Marking of exams and assessments

• The impact of any industrial action on assessment will vary from exam to exam and module to module, so each assessment will be considered individually. 
• Students will still be able to progress pending marking of completed assessments and/or ratification of results at a later date if required.
• All marks received by the results processing deadline will be considered in the usual way when making decisions about progression and awards.
• Marking is carried out by appropriately skilled and experienced subject matter experts and final marks are ratified by assessment boards.
• If some of a student’s marks are missing, assessment boards may make a progression decision based on the student’s other marks in that module and the achievement of both module and programme learning outcomes.
• In accordance with King’s rigorous academic regulations, in some cases students may have been provisionally progressed from one year of study to the next with marks yet to be completed from Assessment Period 2 earlier in the summer.

Graduations

We are planning to hold our graduation ceremonies as scheduled in January and July 2024. More information on graduations is available here.