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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'.
6th October - TEIs to ask Common Awards students to send any feedback for the Management Board to the CAMB student representatives
13th October (approx) - TEIs to receive Banner IDs of new students
23rd October - Common Awards Management Board
24th October - Deadline: TEIs to submit Board of Examiners Membership Lists
24th October - Deadline: TEIs to submit Module Registration Data for quality assurance checks
24th October - Deadline: TEIs to submit APL Credits and supporting documentation
TBC - TEI Forum Meeting
Late October - TEIs asked to circulate invitation letters to students eligible to attend the Durham University Congregation ceremony in January 2026.
3rd November - Deadline for TEIs to submit campus card photographs
28th November – Deadline: TEIs to submit Annual Self-Evaluation (ASE) Documentation
2. TEI Forum
TEI Forum members have been contacted by the Chair of the Forum to consider possible dates for the first meeting of the 2025/26 academic year. This meeting will be held online. Please contact Michael Hull (Chair) directly to discuss any potential agenda items.
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 2025-26 membership. For more information, please see our website.
3. Winter Congregation 2026
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 8th January 2026, at Durham Cathedral. We will shortly be sending student invitation letters to TEI key contacts, and registration will be open from late October 2026 (date TBC).
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 hosted at St John’s College, which incorporates Cranmer Hall, following the graduation ceremonies at Durham Cathedral. St John’s College, Durham University, is a 5-minute walk from the Cathedral where the ceremonies will be held.
The event will allow students to meet with representatives from the Common Awards Team and the Ministry Development Team, whilst also celebrating the graduating students from all TEIs.
There will be drinks and canapés for students and staff. Students and staff can register their attendance via the registration process.
5. Video guides to the AI policy
We have released three brief videos to accompany the new policy on generative AI. These are aimed at students, and TEIs may like to use them as well as providing their own information and training.
Video 1: What is generative AI? – https://youtu.be/LJatb6Xnrws
Video 2: Generative AI and academic misconduct – https://youtu.be/Xd60-8NwkGE
Video 3: Broader issues – https://youtu.be/pCuRHfOlFTQ
6. 2024-25 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 28th November. You can find the most recent version of the forms on our Templates and Forms webpage. Please note that the ASE form has been updated for 2024/25 reflections; the amendment to the form relates only to the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) questions in Section 17, all other sections remain unchanged. As this review has resulted in a shortening of this section, TEIs may prefer to use this form to reflect on the 2024-25 academic year; however, we would be happy to accept either version if TEIs have already completed the existing form.
7. Curriculum Updates
Diversifying the Curriculum project
The latest set of bibliographies from the Diversifying the Curriculum project is now live on the website. This tranche focuses on Christian Tradition: https://www.durham.ac.uk/departments/academic/common-awards/diversity--inclusion/diversifying-the-common-awards-curriculum-project-/annotated-bibliographies/christian-tradition-annotated-bibliographies/
A three-part video series titled Why Global Conversations Matter has also been added to the website at the following link: Diversifying the Curriculum Videos - Durham University
New programmes/modules
New programme Postgraduate Certificate in Worship and Liturgical Studies (V62114) has been approved for delivery from the 2026/27 academic year.
The following new modules have been approved for delivery:
8. Staff Development: Core Skills
This programme provides participants with the opportunity to work through interactive online content in their own time, to discuss their learning with colleagues across the UK and with facilitators from Durham University’s Centre for Academic Development.
Successful completion of the Account of Professional Practice confers Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (now known as AdvanceHE) and the post-nominal letters AFHEA.
More information about the programme is available on the Common Awards website.
Registration for the programme is now open. The link to the online form can be accessed here. It closes on Friday 21st November at 12 noon.
An introductory session will be held in December (date tbc) and the programme begins in February 2026 (date tbc). Dates will be added to the website when available.
9. 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 2nd December 2025.
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.
10. 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 2nd December from 9:30am – 12:30pm. Please contact the team if a representative from your TEI Board of Examiners wishes to attend this meeting.
11. Conversion of Marks
The Common Awards Management Board recently approved a new policy for the marking of summative assessments that don’t use a standard Common Awards assessment criteria grid. 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.
This policy has been developed following a request from the Common Awards External Moderator to ensure a consistency in approach to these kinds of assessment.
The new 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 new 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.
We would like to remind TEIs of the principles surrounding the conversion of marks.
Some assignments, like language tests, might produce quantitative scores. Those scores are not the marks for that assignment. In principle, they will always need to go through some process of conversion – where conversion involves making qualitative judgments about what is meant by different levels of achievement in a quantitatively scored test, and then translating those qualitative judgments into numerical marks in the normal way.
Further information on Converting Test Scores into Marks is available on our website.
12. 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 by 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.
13. 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.
14. Seedcorn Grant – Participant Request
Interfaith Encounter in Theological Education: A Roundtable Conversation for Common Awards TEI’s, Thursday 13 November 12.00-13.30 (online)
What can Common Awards TEIs learn from recent research on interfaith learning and experiences in theological education? Should interfaith encounter be considered an aspect of diversity and inclusion initiatives within theological education? Join us to consider and discuss these questions as part of the Woolf Institute’s Interfaith Encounter in Theological Education project, funded by a Durham Common Awards Seedcorn Grant.
Roundtable participants will be the first to see a new analysis of the data in the recent Coventry University project, Interfaith Learning in Christian and Muslim Higher education Colleges (2025), led by Professor Kristin Aune and Dr Lucy Peacock. We will then reflect together on the implications for theological education in England broadly, and participants’ TEIs specifically, led by Dr Elizabeth Phillips. Themes from these conversations will inform the final project report.
REGISTER HERE. Questions? Contact Elizabeth Phillips: erp31@cam.ac.uk
15. Further Information
The full 2025/2026 academic calendar is available here.
With thanks,
Common Awards Team
