FOI_25-225 Communications and updates to students during COVID pandemic
Date of response: 27 August 2025
We have now considered your request of 31 July 2025 for the following information:
We write further to your email of 30 July 2025 in response to the Freedom of Information Request dated 1 July 2025 (FOI_25-199). We wish to refine and resubmit the FOI Request to request the following information:
In respect of each of the academic years 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22, please provide copies of all announcements, communications or correspondence sent to students (including undergraduate and postgraduate students, both home and international) which relate to:
a. changes to the delivery of teaching;
b. teaching moved online;
c. blended or hybrid learning arrangements;
d. cancelled or rescheduled lectures, seminars or practicals;
e. any disruption to academic provision due to the Covid-19 pandemic; and
f. guidance or updates regarding return to campus, campus closures or remote learning provisions.
This request includes but is not limited to all central communications emails and updates for students relating to changes made and changes to teaching because of mitigations put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our response:
Please see accompanying document, our ref: FOI_25-225 Appendix A.
On this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains a number of exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption(s) to part of your request.
| Exemption | Reason |
|---|---|
| s.40(2), Personal information | Disclosure of some of the requested information would be contrary to the requirements of the UK General Data Protection Regulation |
In line with s.40(2) of the Act we have removed certain personal data from FOI_25-225 Appendix A.
We believe that some of the requested information, specifically names and initials, constitutes the personal data of University staff, as defined by Article 4(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
We believe that disclosure of the personal information relating to these individuals would be contrary to the requirements of Article 5(1)(a) of the GDPR; namely that information must be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner. These individuals would have no expectation that this information would be made publicly available, and we have not identified a lawful basis that would allow or require us to disclose this information.
Where information has been removed from the accompanying file we have replaced the text with a black rectangle.