Teaching in September

Dear applicants,

At the University of Salford, our focus has always been on two key areas: 

• The safety of our students and the wider Salford community 
• Ensuring that all students receive the practical, hands-on experience that they require 

To achieve this, and after consulting with our staff and students, we have put together the following approach to learning for the 2021-22 academic year. 

Face-to-face learning 

We know how important it is for you to receive face-to-face tuition, both for your academic studies and for the social aspect of university that is so vital to us all. For that reason, we are delivering as much face-to-face teaching as possible while maintaining a controlled approach to activity on campus.  

For the time being, we will maintain a level of social distancing on campus in order to protect everyone’s safety and allow us to easily reintroduce measures at short notice if required. However, we’re delighted that you can look forward to an in-person learning experience when you start with us in September. 

Online learning 

In consultation with our staff and students over recent months, we have learnt that there are some elements of online learning that were improvements on how we taught previously. Online learning can be beneficial to individual learning styles and has the added benefit of freeing space up on campus for more face-to-face learning where needed. Therefore, there are some sessions that will be online - not because of the pandemic, but because our students have told us that it’s the best way to deliver them. 

We’ll also be recording some sessions so that they can be viewed afterwards on demand. This isn’t a replacement for attending in person; however, this will allow students to watch sessions back and review what they’ve learnt in order to supplement that face-to-face learning.  

We are committed to providing you with the best possible student experience. 

Assessments 

We’ve also been working hard on adapting your assessments to ensure they are designed to help you succeed. Therefore, there’ll be no formal, written exams for first year undergraduates in the first term. We’ve also put in place a Practice for Success programme which will help you learn how best to approach assessments when they return and provide you with techniques to ensure that you can demonstrate your understanding effectively. 

At Salford we have always welcomed students from a diverse range of backgrounds so we are used to ensuring that their transition to university is as smooth as it possibly can be. It is this understanding and experience that is behind all the preparation we are doing to ensure that our students are ready to take the next step in their academic careers. 

Look after yourselves, stay safe and I look forward to meeting you soon.