At its 11 June 2014 meeting, the Academic Board approved a revised academic year structure that will see the Michaelmas and Lent Terms extended by one week each to 11 weeks, followed by a seven-week exam period. The details are as follows:
a) Michaelmas Term will begin one week earlier than under current arrangements (i.e. teaching will commence one week earlier, with registration and Orientation held from the preceding Thursday in MT ‘Week 0’);
b) Michaelmas Term will run for 11 weeks, and end at the same time as under current arrangements. Use of the extra term-time week will be at the discretion of departments, and there is no requirement that it be used as an additional ‘teaching’ week. Half-unit courses will continue to be delivered over 10 weeks, full-units over 20. The extra term-time week may be used for a reading or formative assessment week, for a revision week in Week 11 (i.e. for post-Christmas MT half-unit exams) or for other departmentally determined learning support activities. The only requirement is that where departments choose to hold a reading week, it must be held in Week 6.
c) A post-Christmas exam period will be held in Lent Term ‘Week 0’ for MT half-units (i.e. the same week in which the LSE100 exam is currently sat), subject to capacity. For the avoidance of doubt, there is no requirement to hold MT half-unit exams in LT Week 0 – the decision to hold exams in this period will be down to individual departments and course leaders, subject to capacity.
d) Lent Term will start at the same time as under the current year, but will last one week longer. Like the MT, it will run for 11 weeks, with the extra term-time week again deployed according to individual departmental discretion. Formal teaching will finish after the end of Week 11, which under current arrangements would be the end of the first week of the Easter break.
e) Summer Term will start at the same time as under the current year and run for seven weeks. The first week will be reserved for revision teaching, with exams held in the remaining six weeks.
f) The formal academic year will end three weeks earlier than under current arrangements.
These changes will be implemented for the first time in the 2015/16 session.
If you have any questions about the new academic year structure, please contact Mark Thomson (m.t.thomson@lse.ac.uk|).