Academic expectations of Student visa holders 

Obtaining a Student Visa is easy, keeping it is what matters! 

Obtaining a Student Visa for the UK means that you have chosen to complete a course of study here and this is the main purpose of your time in the country. To help you achieve your academic goals, and therefore protect your visa, we put together some information that will make you familiar with some of the behaviours that you will need to embrace to be successful.  

The UK educational system may be different from the one in your home country. In the UK, for you to successfully complete your course, you are required to do a lot of self-study throughout the academic year. Your preparation shouldn’t finish when you leave the classroom; to maintain the required level of study for top grades, you should research/review the topic of your class before attending it. Reviewing your study materials before each class will have a positive impact in your degree. It will help you think of questions for your lecturer and meaningfully engage in any discussions. 

Successfully completing your course means that you are awarded the qualification you have applied for. Not only is this the final reward for your hard work and money spent on tuition fees, if you intend to switch to a work visa after completion of your course, your eligibility to apply for Skilled Worker or Graduate visa is subject to your course completion.

If you would like more information on getting the most out of your academic efforts, you should attend our session ‘How to ace my degree’ session at 2pm (UK time) on 16^th January – click link below for access to the online session:  https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/c29f6b7b6eb24a79a13ecfd54ec742ea 

Don’t forget, if the university agreed to issue a CAS to sponsor your Student visa, it is your responsibility to protect your visa and succeeding in your course is essential to remain sponsored.  

Attendance and engagement  

One of the main responsibilities attached to your visa is to attend all your classes. You should aim for 100% attendance if you want to successfully complete your course and achieve top grades. Failure to attend your classes may result in your visa being withdrawn and your visa will be subject to cancellation, which means you will be required to leave the country within 60 days.  

Attendance and engagement are two elements of a similar behaviour – taking part and being responsible for your academic success. Attendance is the physical presence in the classroom. Engagement is wider than this and includes behaviour such as completing coursework on time, attending exams, responding to emails from university staff and paying your tuition fees on time. 

To meet the attendance requirements of your Student visa you must attend all your lectures, seminars, meetings, tutorials, and other classes. You should aim to arrive at least five minutes early and remain until the class is dismissed, arriving late, or leaving mid-class will only disrupt your and your peers’ experience and you may miss the opportunity to record your attendance which will trigger an email from the Compliance team seeking explanation for your absence. 

If you cannot attend a class because of an unavoidable reason, you must inform the module leader before the class takes place, do not wait for the university to take action to seek authorised absence.  

Ensure that you have registered with a doctor in the UK so you can keep yourself healthy and can provide supporting evidence if you do need time away from classes due to illness. 

To have a good attendance and engagement record, you must: 

• Arrive on time to start your course, ensure you travel before the enrolment deadline if you are not in the UK already 
• Attend all classes, seminars, and lectures. Attend exams, complete assignments, and other coursework on time. 
• Inform the university any circumstances or issues affecting your attendance or ability to engage with your classes. 
• Familiarise yourself with My Attendance information 
• Familiarise yourself with our engagement policy. 
• Check your London Metropolitan email address and reply to any emails that require action from you. 
• Ensure your student record is up to date, including providing your UK contact details – full address and postcode as well as an up to date telephone number 
• Pay your tuition fees on time if applicable 

The University expects all students to maintain a good attendance record and engage with all components of their programme of study. You must actively record your attendance in each session by following the instructions your lecturer will give you. Be sure to behave honourably and do not try to cheat the attendance recording system, our systems are designed to show us who is on campus and who is not. 

Student visa holders are not permitted to study remotely in the UK, therefore your attendance is face to face and the University does not offer remote teaching provision as an alternative to face to face study.  

Remember that poor attendance and engagement will result in your visa being withdrawn and this decision is final.  

Enrolment 

The first step to starting your course is completing your enrolment. This is a three-step process: 

1. Complete pre-enrolment. Check your emails for the invitation to do this important first step. Ensure that you complete this and not a friend or agent as you will need to confirm that you agree to the university terms and conditions of enrolment. 

2. Complete an ID check.  Once you have completed pre-enrolment, you will receive an email inviting you to complete an ID check. This step is very important as this will begin the process for your student ID card. 

3. Attend face to face documents check. Once you have completed pre-enrolment, you will receive an email inviting you onto campus to visit the International Support and Compliance team with your documents. You will need to bring the below so make sure you pack everything you need before you travel: 

1. BRP – collected from the post office when you arrive 

2. Passport 

3. Visa grant letter – printed or electronic copy 

4. Original hard-copy academic qualifications listed as evidence for offer on your CAS. Please do not bring photocopies as these are not accepted, only bring the originals. 

When the above steps are complete, you will be asked to make a final confirmation of enrolment. You will then be a fully enrolled student at London Met! Congratulations! 

Please don’t miss the deadline of arrival and ensure you are in the UK and have completed all of the above steps before the University’s deadline.

This will keep your Student visa safe as we are unable to continue to sponsor students who do not complete their enrolment in time. 

Travelling during studies 

If you need to travel, this should be done outside of term time, during the official university holidays as specified in the term dates. You are permitted to travel during these periods without needing permission from the University. A student enrolment letter may be helpful for you to prove you are a genuine student at the border. 

If you must travel during term time, for personal reasons, you should seek authorised absence from your Course and Module leaders. You can request up to three weeks’ absence and you may need to explain why you need this time to be granted it. 

If you want to complete your dissertation from overseas, the university will withdraw sponsorship of your visa if you are not present in the UK attending your mandatory supervisory meetings making you ineligible to apply for the Graduate visa. PhD Research students may be able to complete short periods of research overseas with prior permission from the Visa Compliance team and your supervisor. 

Pregnancy and birth 

Absence due to pregnancy or the birth of a child are not treated differently in the immigration rules. London Met does not have a separate maternity policy as this falls within our engagement and authorised absence policy. Students who need to can request a maximum of three weeks authorised absence. This will include the two-week statutory requirement after the birth of your child.  

Parenthood is a busy time as well as being rewarding, and you will need to understand how this will impact on your studies. If you need more time away from classes, we may recommend you take a break from studies and return on a new visa when you are able to pick up your studies again. This will mean your visa will be subject to cancellation, and you will be required to leave the country. Depending on your course level, you may not be able to bring dependants back to the UK with you. If you choose to stay on your course, you will need to arrange childcare in the UK. 

Accommodation  

As you prepare for your academic journey with us, we wanted to provide you with some useful information regarding your accommodation.   

 Whilst we understand that you may already have plans in place for your accommodation, we kindly wanted to remind you that choosing accommodation that is far from campus may make it difficult for you attend your classes and could pose a risk to your visa. Therefore, for your own academic success, we recommend you consider accommodation near the University or within a short commute to campus.  Unfortunately, the University does not own or manage any accommodation but we have detailed information on accommodation available on our website, with many student residences very close to the University.  

London Metropolitan is in Greater London. Train fares in UK are expensive, you should aim to find an accommodation within the nine London Zones or within a one-hour commute at most. If you decide to live outside of London, you need to bear in mind the cost of trains in the UK and how many days you are expected to attend your classes. Be prepared to have classes between 2 to 4 days a week. 

If you reside outside or London and due to train cancelation or strikes you are not able to attend your classes, living far from the university is not an excuse to miss classes and your absence will not be authorised if you use ‘living far’ or ‘expensive’ in your reasons for lack of attendance.  

UKVI are considering bringing into force a condition of Student visa holders to live within a certain radius of their place of study. Please ensure that you are already living within easy access to avoid a costly move during the academic year where you may struggle to find accommodation. 

Exploring our website extensively should give you adequate information on accommodation. Should you need further assistance, or if you have a specific enquiry that is not answered on the website, please do not hesitate to contact us.   

How to be successful in your assessments 

Most UK degree courses have few exams and instead have individual or group coursework assessments. At postgraduate levels of study, these assessments require you to read widely, think deeply about the issues raised and discussed in all your modules, make connections between theories and ideas and become comfortable evaluating and critiquing experts’ ideas while developing your own opinions.  

To be successful you will not only have to attend all classes, but you must be engaged in classroom discussions with other students and do a lot of independent reading and thinking outside class on the content of each module. As a rule, one hour of class time requires another three hours of self-study. This can be a very different way of studying and one which you need to adjust to quickly especially if you are on a short postgraduate course.  

Each module assessment is designed to measure how well you achieve the learning outcomes of the module you are studying. It is important therefore that you look at the module specification and are aware of the learning outcomes you need to address in your assessments. 

Using your feedback 

The assessment mark is important and so is feedback from tutors. You must read and take on board any written feedback from your tutors. It may also give you information about how you might have achieved a higher mark or explain why you achieved the mark you got. Written feedback will help you if you need to reassess the coursework and is your starting point for improving your work for reassessment. 

How your assessments are marked, and feedback given 

On dissertations and projects and in some other modules, you may be offered individual guidance and the opportunity to submit a draft to your tutor before the submission date. This will allow the tutor to give you feedforward as opposed to feedback. This is information to let you know whether you are on the right track and to adjust your assessment before you submit it. You should always make sure you take up this opportunity as it can often help you achieve higher grades and avoid failing an assessment. An example of this is your dissertation and project assessments where you will be gaining feedforward throughout your supervision meetings. 

The marking process of assessments

It is important to note that the length of the marking process of your assessments is months not weeks.  Several teams of people are involved in marking your assessments, giving you feedback and agreeing your final mark and publishing them. Tutors have approximately 3 weeks to complete the first and second marking of your assessments. The whole process however usually takes a few months until your approved and final marks are published online. 

Marking is anonymous, and tutors do not know whose work they are marking. This is different in the dissertation/project. If you have been using your supervision hours correctly your supervising tutor will be familiar with your dissertation after giving you feedback on it throughout the writing process. 

Submission of work by the deadline. It is important to note that the deadline is the LAST POSSIBLE POINT you can submit work and is not the day or time at which you must submit. Always plan to submit a few days earlier. 

First Marking Your assessment is firstly marked by your tutor and at this point your mark is provisional only. The written feedback you gain from them is as important as the overall mark. You should read it carefully, especially if you fail an assessment and need to reassess because this feedback will be the starting point of your reassessment guidance. 

Second marking is then undertaken by a second tutor and marks may be adjusted up or down or agreed upon and remain the same. The second tutor could be another tutor on the module or the course leader for example. Again at this stage, the marks are only provisional. 

The final approval of marks by the external examiners takes several more weeks after the initial first and second marking by your tutors. 

External Examiner.  

Each degree course has an external examiner who is a tutor in another university who teaches on a similar course. They are therefore neutral and examine the academic quality of the course for you and the university. Each year they look at all the assessments, the content of the module and the marking process on the degree course and review and report on the quality of the module and the fairness of marking and assessment processes.   

The External Examiner reviews the marks and the marking process and may also adjust marks up or down and if they are not agreed on and may ask that the marking is redone. Once they are agreed with tutors and course leaders, the External Examiner formally agrees the marks for all students to Academic Registry.  

Final agreed marks published  

External Examiner approval forms part of the Subject Standards Board which is a formal meeting with the Dean and Heads of Subject area and course teams, in which each student’s grades are discussed and agreed upon before publication online. Only after the Subject Standards Board has taken place can final agreed marks be published online on Evision for students to view and awards to be calculated.  

How to successfully complete and pass your course  

To be given an award means you have successfully completed and passed all the assessments in all the modules you have been registered for. Making sure that you complete and pass all assessments in each module is key to completing the course and getting an award. Pass marks are 40% for undergraduate and 50% for postgraduate assessments. 

Successful completion is when the awards board confirms and awards you the degree qualification listed in your CAS. 

It is best to attempt and pass all assessments in all your modules at the first attempt. If you do this you will be granted the award as on the latest CAS following the first Awards Board, and be able to apply for the Graduate Visa. Please note though, if you are awarded a lower degree qualification you may not be eligible to apply for the Graduate visa. 

What happens if you do not pass every assessment at the first attempt? 

Things can go wrong for students at assessment. However, you have two opportunities to take each assessment in one academic year. The first assessment opportunity is when you can gain the maximum marks possible for the assessment.  

If for some reason you fail an assessment or you do not submit an assessment, you have a second opportunity to take the assessment again. This happens later in the year, in the REASSESSMENT period. There is one reassessment period according to the university key dates which falls in July. 

There are four important points to remember: 

• At reassessment, the marks you achieve will be capped at the pass mark threshold, 40% for Undergraduate and 50% for Postgraduate.  
• If you enter the reassessment period it is important to note your graduation may be delayed and this may impact your ability to apply for the Graduate Route and will depend on the dates of the Awards Board.  
• If you fail the second attempt at reassessment, to complete your degree you are required to retake the whole module again the following academic year. You will need to pay again for registration to the module and its assessments and you will need to extend your visa  

Mitigating Circumstances 

If you fall seriously ill around the assessment period and are unable to submit your assessments,  you can apply for mitigating circumstances with medical evidence. If your claim for mitigating circumstances is accepted, you will be allowed to be assessed at the next assessment point in the component concerned, and capping does not apply. Mitigating Circumstances – Student Zone (londonmet.ac.uk) 

Mitigating Circumstances applications are helpful, but can complicate matters for students on visas. This is because you enter into the reassessment period which can delay graduation and impact applications for Graduate Visa routes.  

Reassessments and retaking modules as a Student visa holder 

Definitions:  reassessment, retake a module, attempts  

Reassessment: when you have failed an assessment and have a second or open reassessment on a module which doesn’t require you to attend.  

Retake modules: if you fail an assessment for the second time, you will need to pay for and register for the whole module in the following academic year. Your attendance is required for the retake of the module. 

Attempts: academic regulations state that the maximum number of attempts at an assessment/module is four.  

These four attempts are the first assessment and reassessment in year A and first assessment and reassessment in year B, if the module is being retaken.  

In some cases, you may be required to retake the module with attendance at a cost, in this case, you will need to study the module again from the beginning and are not only resitting an assessment. 

The fourth or final attempt would normally be on an assessment only basis which means the university will withdraw sponsorship of your visa if you don’t have engagement requirements. 

Reassessment period: there is one reassessment period according to the university key dates which falls in July. 

Reassessment on an assessment only basis: if you fail a module/year and you are enrolled on an assessment only basis, your student visa could be cancelled if there are no engagement requirements through the semester/year.  

Example:

Assessment only module: if your failed module is registered on an assessment-only basis and you don’t have other modules registered in that semester, the University must notify the Home Office of the withdrawal of sponsorship of your visa if you are not required to engage with your course for a period of 60 days or more (excluding vacation periods) This will result in the cancellation of your visa. 

Assessment only year: the University must notify the Home Office the withdrawal of sponsorship of your visa. If you are not required to engage with your course for a period of 60 days or more (excluding vacation periods) This will result in the cancellation of your visa. 

Failing a module that is pre-requisite to progress to the dissertation: you will be given an opportunity to submit a reassessment in July. If the module is a pre-requisite to the dissertation, for example Research Methods, you won’t be permitted to start the dissertation until you pass this module which means that the end date of your course will be extended and not in all cases the university will issue a CAS to extend the visa. If the dissertation is submitted within the validity of the visa, the university won’t issue a CAS because your course is deemed to have been completed and the university cannot issue a CAS for the sole purpose of waiting for results. 

What is expected from you during dissertation/project 

Depending on the degree course you study, the dissertation or project module may have some taught classes you are required to attend. Other degree courses may not have taught classes. In all degree courses you are expected to show high levels of independence in your research studies and work independently on your research project.   

Depending on your course, you will be allocated a dissertation supervisor for a certain number of hours of one-to-one or group supervision. It is your responsibility to contact your allocated supervisor and arrange these supervision meetings with them and to prepare for and attend all agreed supervision meetings.   

The dissertation/project period is deemed as term time, as such you are only permitted to work part-time as specified on your Student Visa during term time. 

Eligibility to apply for the Graduate visa  

The eligibility to apply for the Graduate visa is not guaranteed if you are in the UK studying. Your eligibility to apply for the Graduate visa depends on you and completing your course successfully within the original CAS dates will give you better chance and a bigger window of opportunity to make the Graduate visa application.  

You can apply for the Graduate visa is all the following are true: 

1. You are in the UK and you Student/Tier 4 visa is valid at the point of application   

2. Your course of study is a ‘relevant qualification’  

3. You meet the study in the UK criteria, completing a minimum of your course while present in the UK 

4. You have successfully completed the degree qualification listed in your most recent CAS 

5. The university reported your successful completion to the UK Visas and Immigration, and you receive confirmation by email  

The university has set awards publication dates, if your submission falls close to the awards date, it will be impossible to mark, publish and send your results to the board to confer the degree. The university cannot move award dates solely to accommodate your circumstances of eligibility.  

The UK Council of International Student Affairs (UKCISA) has comprehensive information about the Graduate visa available in their website.  

If you cannot pass your course within the CAS dates, your eligibility to apply for the Graduate visa could be jeopardised, if your visa expires before your award is conferred.  

Graduate visa eligibility if you fail modules/dissertation: If the end date of your course changes to a later date, you might not be eligible to apply for the Graduate visa if your visa expires before the awards board confirm the successful completion of your course. 

Student visa holders should aim to complete the course within the CAS dates. The Home Office usually grants 2 or 4 months ‘wrap up’ period after the original course end date and in most cases the reassessment can be completed during this time without the need of a visa extension. If the course cannot be completed within the validity of the visa, the university will carry out some checks and will apply discretion to issue a new CAS for a new visa application. 

If you submitted a request for mitigating circumstances and these get approved, your submission date may hinder your Graduate visa eligibility if the submission date is before the end date of your visa, but the confirmation of your successful completion happens after your visa expires. 

Be smart, be prepared to succeed in your studies and get all the benefits of the UK job market after completion.  

Questions to consider before the session: 

1. Do you know where to find the university attendance and engagement policy? 

2. Have you updated your Evision record with your UK address? 

3. Do you know what the term dates are and when the exam periods will be? 

4. Do you know how far your commute will be to classes and how much this will cost? When is your last train/ bus/ tube? 

5. If you are interested in the Graduate Route, do you understand the eligibility criteria?  

Other resources: 

Award publication dates 

Academic regulations 

Visa conditions during your studies 

Graduate Route (Post-Study work) 

International student engagement and record keeping policies 

Online Session

Session 2: Academic expectations of student visa holders VISA COMPLIANCE TEAM and Claire Bradshaw

Wednesday  DATE & TIME TBC

Follow-up activities after the session 

1. Watch recording from this session and make notes of any questions you may not have asked at the time. Contact the Advice Service for help with these questions if you can’t find the answers on our web pages. 

2. Review the academic calendar and term dates information for your course and create a first draft of your academic journey, including exam periods. Think of some questions for your academic course team. You will receive more detailed information for your specific course in your course induction at the start of term and having an initial plan will ensure you are fully prepared. 

3. Log into Evision and check that you have completed: 

• Pre-enrolment – you will have received an email about this 
• Term time contact details – include your full UK address and postcode as well as a mobile number. Using the University address is not acceptable! 

4. Complete the new student checklist: 

• Complete enrolment 
• Read through the International Student Handbook 
• Update your contact details 
• Check out the Student Zone pages and familiarise yourself with the information available to you 
• Familiarise yourself with your journey to and from the university 
• Attend all of your induction and orientation sessions 
• Visit the university library for a tour 
• Check out the Study Resources 
• Check out the Student Union pages – because it’s also about taking part and having fun in extracurricular activities!