Read our latest news bulletin
See in Microsoft Sway
1. Upcoming Deadlines and Key Dates
TEIs are reminded that marks considered by the TEI Board of Examiners must be submitted within 48 hours of the meeting taking place. Further information is available in the section titled 'Overarching Board of Examiners'.
5th October - TEIs to ask Common Awards students to send any feedback for the Management Board to the CAMB student representatives
6th October – Module Registration Training
12th October (approx) - TEIs to receive Banner IDs of new students
21st October – Module Registration Training (repeated session)
22nd October - Common Awards Management Board
23rd October - Deadline: TEIs to submit Board of Examiners Membership Lists
23rd October - Deadline: TEIs to submit Module Registration Data for quality assurance checks
TBC - TEI Forum Meeting
Late October - TEIs asked to circulate invitation letters to students eligible to attend the Durham University Congregation ceremony in January 2027.
2nd November - Deadline for TEIs to submit campus card photographs
27th November – Deadline: TEIs to submit Annual Self-Evaluation (ASE) Documentation
2. TEI Forum
Each TEI Principal (or equivalent) is permitted to nominate up to four members of core staff to serve as members of the TEI Forum. An email has been sent to key contacts regarding 2026-27 membership. For more information, please see our website.
The Chair of the TEI Forum, Dr Steve Smith of St Mellitus College, will be in touch to consider possible dates for the next meeting in due course. Please contact Dr Smith directly to discuss any potential agenda items.
3. Winter Congregation 2027
Students
Students eligible for graduation (those who have successfully completed the BA, MA, Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate) will be invited to attend the graduation ceremony at 12 noon on 7th January 2027, at Durham Cathedral. We will shortly be sending student invitation letters to TEI key contacts, and registration will be open from 19th October
TEI Staff
Members of staff in TEIs are also welcome to attend the Common Awards graduation ceremonies; the staff attendance registration form will be sent to TEIs in October.
Academic Procession
Members of staff in TEIs who hold an undergraduate degree are eligible to participate in the academic procession for the Common Awards students. If you are interested in this, please indicate on the staff attendance registration form in October.
4. Common Awards Celebration Event
A Celebration Event will be held following the graduation ceremonies at Durham Cathedral. Further information about the venue and timings will be shared with eligible students in due course.
5. 2025-26 Annual Self Evaluation meetings
As in previous years, we will schedule individual virtual meetings with TEIs in Epiphany Term to discuss and reflect on the information provided in Annual Self-Evaluation submissions. These meetings will be chaired by Common Awards University Liaison Officers (ULO) and will include a colleague from the Ministry Development Team where the TEI trains Church of England ministers, to provide a more co-ordinated response to ASE submissions. If you feel it is more appropriate for your TEI to have two separate meetings, then please let us know when we begin to arrange meetings. As agreed previously, Section A returns will be shared with the Common Awards team, where permission has been provided; TEIs will be able to indicate their preferences for sharing Section A submission in the Section A template form.
The Common Awards Team will be in touch to organise a convenient time for these meetings following TEI submissions of ASEs.
The deadline for the submissions of Annual Self Evaluation forms is 27th November. You can find the most recent version of the forms on our Templates and Forms webpage. Please note that the new ASE form, which includes the shortened Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) section, must be used to reflect on the 2025-26 academic year.
6. Staff Development: Core Skills
Durham University’s Centre for Academic Development (DCAD) offer staff development opportunities for staff in our partner TEIs. Please visit our web page for details Common Awards Staff: Staff Development - Durham University
If you are interested in participating in this year’s development opportunities, you must have a Durham IT account to be able to complete the expression of interest form.
To get an account, complete the CIS New Registration Form (which can be found on this webpage Templates and Forms - Durham University under ‘Resources for Staff’) and email it to common.awards@durham.ac.uk.
The Common Awards team will contact you once your account has been set up.
Once you have a Durham University email, please complete the expression of interest form if you wish to join the PRP.
The deadline for submitting an expression of interest for this year is 8 November 2026.
7. Board of Examiners
Parchments and transcripts for students not eligible for Congregation (Graduation) following the September Overarching Board of Examiners will be circulated to TEIs by the end of October. We will contact you to let you know when these have been circulated. Please contact the Team urgently if you need to advise us of an alternative address to send these to. Those eligible for Congregation (Graduation) will receive their award documentation ~8 weeks after the January ceremony.
The next Overarching Board of Examiners is due to be held on 1st December 2026.
Please note that the Team will be working to extremely tight timescales for this Board. We therefore wish to remind TEIs that it is absolutely paramount that TEIs submit completing student modules marks 48 hours after they have been considered at their TEI Board of Examiners. Please do send these earlier if you are able to do so.
TEIs are asked to ensure that all appropriate checks on the data are undertaken before sharing the data with the Common Awards Team to reduce the number of queries. It is also important that a staff member with full knowledge of the students’ records is available at the TEI in the weeks following the board, to resolve any queries.
TEIs are reminded that Boards of Examiners must ensure that the following is submitted to Durham in line with the deadlines in published guidance and the Common Awards Calendar:
Further information on the documents TEIs must submit following their Board of Examiners is available here.
8. TEI Attendance – Durham Board of Examiners
TEIs are reminded that they are very welcome to send a representative from their TEI Board of Examiners (normally the Chair) to observe the meetings of the overarching Board. Up to three TEI BoE representatives may attend each board. This can be a good way for TEIs to discover more about how the overarching Board works, and to see how we handle decisions about their students.
The next meeting of the Board is due to be held online on 1st December from 1:00pm – 4:00pm. Please contact the team if a representative from your TEI Board of Examiners wishes to attend this meeting.
9. Conversion of Marks
TEIs are reminded to follow the policy for marking summative assessments where a standard Common Awards assessment criteria grid is not used. This includes any assessments which use quantitative marking – e.g., where the mark given is simply a count of the number of correct answers in a test – which can include for example biblical languages tests or multiple choice tests. Such marking does not directly refer to the qualitative descriptors in Common Awards assessment criteria grids.
The policy requires any TEI which marks any piece of summative assessment other than by using one of the standard Common Awards assessment criteria grids to offer a statement of how the TEI believes this would yield an appropriate overall mark – that is, how the TEI ensures that the mark ultimately given for the work will be comparable to the qualitative descriptors found in the assessment criteria grids. This statement should be shared with the Common Awards Team and would be available to the TEI’s external examiner, ensuring transparency concerning the approach being taken. Equally importantly, the need for a statement will ensure that the relevant tutors have carefully thought through the issues.
The policy also requires that when conversion is going to be applied to marks – i.e., when the quantitative marks from a test are converted into different marks that sit in the relevant qualitative bands – students should be informed about this in advance. It is important that there is transparency with students over the assessment processes that are being applied to their work.
The full details of the policy can be found here, and should be read in conjunction with the policy on converting test scores into marks.
If the policy applies to any new or existing assessments that your TEI will be offering from 2026-27, we would be grateful if you could provide the relevant statements to us as soon as possible. Thank you.
10. Invoices and Census
As per the academic calendar, the Common Awards Census will be taken on December 1st.
TEIs are asked to confirm all registration details by December 1st (i.e. please ensure any programme registration changes are submitted before this date).
A reminder of the process will follow nearer the time, but to summarise you will be asked to send the Common Awards team the Moodle census snapshot report on 1st December, and we will check this against our Banner data.
Once the number in the snapshot is finalised, this will be used to calculate TEI validation fees. TEIs are reminded that they will be charged for any students who withdraw after the census date.
As per the Standard Validation Contract, there may be an increase in the validation and per capita student fees charged to TEIs in line with inflation. Details will be circulated to TEIs shortly.
11. Published information
TEIs are reminded that all published information (including new and amended web pages) for and associated with validated Common Awards programmes and the partnership with the University must be approved in advance by the Common Awards Management Board, on behalf of the University. TEIs are contractually obliged to share all publicity materials that reference Durham University, the Common Awards partnership and/or the Common Awards programmes.
12. TEI Recruitment Reminder
Please could we remind TEIs that any job adverts must be submitted to Common Awards for review prior to being published. It is becoming more frequent that this is not happening.
Staffing at TEIs - Durham University
Making new appointments
TEIs should inform the Common Awards Team of any anticipated staffing changes as their University Liaison Officer (ULO) should be invited to serve on the appointing committee for new staff to the TEI who will be teaching or examining on Common Awards programmes. The ULO’s role will be to ensure that the standards necessary for the continued validation of the programmes will be maintained. TEIs should contact the Common Awards Team to inform them of any interviews; we will determine whether it will be necessary for a University Liaison Officer to serve on the appointing committee. We anticipate that, in many cases, this will not be necessary.
TEIs should ensure they provide the Common Awards Team with a draft job description before it is made public for any new staff appointment if the staff member will be teaching or examining on Common Awards programmes, in order for it to be reviewed by the relevant University Liaison Officer. TEIs should ensure that they provide the draft job description in good time to permit their ULO to make comments before the job description is made public.
We would normally expect that teachers are qualified to the level above that which they will be teaching or assessing. Contact the Common Awards Team if you wish to seek exemption from this.
13. Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Policies and Procedures
Thank you to all colleagues who responded to the recent consultation on the proposed policy on Sexual Misconduct and Violence. The University has established a range of institutional policies and procedures to meet the requirements of the Office for Students’ Condition E6: Harassment and Sexual Misconduct. As these arrangements extend beyond the introduction of the Sexual Misconduct and Violence Policy alone, the Student Conduct Office is now reviewing how they should operate for students studying on University awards through validated partner institutions, including the respective responsibilities of the University and partner institutions. Feedback received during the recent consultation also raised a number of important questions which require further consideration.
We are working closely with the Student Conduct Office to develop clear guidance for partner institutions, and a dedicated working group will meet in October to take this work forward.
In the meantime, TEIs should continue to follow their existing procedures for dealing with concerns relating to harassment and sexual misconduct, seeking advice from the University where appropriate.
We appreciate your patience as this work progresses and will share further guidance as soon as it becomes available. If you have a specific case or concern that would benefit from advice in the meantime, please do get in touch.
14. Partnership Renewal
Thank you to TEIs for submitting their partnership renewal documentation. We appreciate the significant time and effort involved in preparing these materials and the cooperation shown throughout the process.
We are currently reviewing all partnership renewal submissions in collaboration with relevant University colleagues and an external reviewer to ensure a thorough and consistent evaluation of each partnership. Where necessary, we may contact institutions to seek clarification or additional information as part of the review process.
It is anticipated that the resulting reports will be considered by the Quality and Standards Committee (QSC) at its meeting in late November, before being submitted to Education Committee for consideration early in the new year.
We will continue to keep TEIs updated as the process progresses and are grateful for your ongoing engagement with this important exercise.
15. Further Information
The full 2026/2027 academic calendar is available here.
With thanks,
Common Awards Team
/filters:quality(70)/prod01/prodbucket01/media/durham-university/departments-/common-awards/images-and-logos/theology-images/37247.jpg)