01The year
A cohort opens at one of three points in the year and closes twelve teaching weeks later.
3start points
Three points in the year at which a cohort opens
This prospectus is set out as the cohort itself is set out: the year first, then the group, then the module, then the written work, then the twelve weeks read week by week, then the hours the whole thing asks of a candidate, and supervision last, because supervision is the part that continues after the taught weeks close.
A start point is the week in which a cohort opens. Nothing is taught between start points, and a place offered after a cohort has opened is held against the next one rather than inserted into the group already running. The three points are printed as points and nothing else, because the working calendar of a cohort is issued to the candidates admitted to it.
Start point January 12 teaching weeks
The January cohort opens in the first full teaching week of the year and runs its twelve weeks without a break in the middle. Supervision meetings begin in the first week, so the working question of a project is under discussion before the first module closes.
Start point May 12 teaching weeks
The May cohort is the one most often taken by candidates who are working while they study, since its independent weeks fall where other commitments tend to be lighter. The teaching pattern is identical to the other two; only the calendar around it differs.
Start point September 12 teaching weeks
The September cohort opens the teaching year and is the point at which a candidate deferring an earlier offer is ordinarily placed. Where a place is deferred, the offer is re-dated to the new start point and the terms of it are restated in writing.
Applications, offers and deferral are set out on the admissions sheet
02The cohort
Supervision is the part of the work that does not scale, which is what fixes the size of a group.
12candidates at most
What a cohort is, and how a supervisor is attached to it
A cohort is formed of no more than twelve candidates and runs for twelve teaching weeks from the start point at which it opened. It is held at that size because every candidate is supervised individually alongside the taught programme, and supervision is the part of the work that does not scale.
Each candidate is allocated a supervisor during the first week. The allocation is made against the working subject of the independent project, so that the reading a candidate is set and the questions a supervisor asks are pointed at one problem from the beginning. Where a project moves substantially in the first four weeks, the allocation is reviewed once, and the outcome of that review is confirmed to the candidate in writing.
The cohort meets as a single group for taught sessions and works in supervisor pairs for everything else. Attendance at taught sessions is recorded. Where a candidate misses a session, the session materials and a written account of what the group covered are issued to that candidate before the following week opens.
A cohort is also the unit the records are organised by: enrolment, attendance, marks and supervisory notes are held against the cohort a candidate belongs to.
03The module
Four consecutive weeks, four sessions of three hours, and the reading always one week ahead of the session it belongs to.
4weeks to a module
How a taught module is built across its weeks
A taught module occupies four consecutive weeks of the cohort and is delivered as four sessions of three hours. Three modules run in sequence across the twelve weeks, and each is closed before the next opens, so a candidate is never carrying two module reading lists at once.
Reading is issued one week ahead of the session it belongs to. Each week carries one set text and two supporting items, and candidates are expected to have read the set text in full and at least one supporting item before the session begins. Sessions are run as seminars against that reading and are not a restatement of it, which is why the reading is treated as a condition of attendance and not as an optional extension.
Where a candidate joins the cohort in the first week of a module, the earlier reading of that module is issued in the same package. In each case the module handbook states the set texts for all four of its weeks at the point the module opens, so a candidate can read ahead across the whole module where the working pattern of that candidate favours it.
The module handbook and what a missed session produces are on the taught modules sheet
04Written work
Reading and writing fall in the same week and are prepared together, which is why the two loads move in opposite directions.
6pieces submitted
Written work, and the week it sits in
Assessment is distributed across the twelve weeks so that reading and writing fall in the same week and are prepared together. A week in which a submission falls carries a lighter reading load, and a week without a submission carries the heavier one; the two strands are the two halves of a single week and are planned as one thing.
The half that is read
One set text and two supporting items in a week with no submission; one text and one supporting item in a week that carries one.
The half that is written
Six pieces across the twelve weeks, each set against the module it is drawn from and submitted in the week the table below names.
Six pieces of assessed work are set. A position note of eight hundred to one thousand words is submitted in the first week. A reading log of about twelve hundred words follows in the third. Two essays of three thousand to three thousand five hundred words are submitted in the fifth and the tenth weeks. A project proposal of fifteen hundred to two thousand words is submitted in the eighth week, and a portfolio drawing the taught work together, of around five thousand words, closes the twelve weeks.
Written feedback is normally returned within fifteen working days of the submission deadline, as marginal comment against the script together with a summary judgement. Where a piece is returned outside that window, the candidate is told the revised return date before the original one passes. Marks are provisional until they are confirmed by the assessment review, and candidates are told which of the two they are looking at whenever a mark is issued.
Week one Position note 800–1,000 words
The question a candidate arrives with, stated plainly, together with the reading that stands behind it. It is written before the first module has closed and is read again in the twelfth week against what the taught weeks did to it.
Week three Reading log about 1,200 words
A record of what was read across the first three weeks and of what the reading settled. The log is assessed on the account it gives of an argument, not on the number of items it lists.
Week five Essay one 3,000–3,500 words
Drawn from the first module and answered against a question issued with the module handbook. It is returned with marginal comment and a summary judgement, and a feedback tutorial of thirty minutes follows it in the seventh week.
Week eight Project proposal 1,500–2,000 words
The independent project stated as a question, a method and a plan for the evidence it needs. The proposal is either accepted or returned once for revision, and it is presented to the cohort in the design clinic of the same week.
Week ten Essay two 3,000–3,500 words
Drawn from the second or the third module, and written after the first essay has been returned, so that the comment on the first is expected to be visible in the second.
Week twelve Portfolio around 5,000 words
The taught work drawn together: what the three modules established, where they disagreed, and what the candidate now holds as a position. It closes the assessed work of the cohort, and the independent project continues after it.
Marking, second reading and the return window are on the assessed work sheet
05The grid
Twelve weeks against three strands. Select any cell, with a pointer or from the keyboard, and the panel beside the table follows it.
36cells in the grid
The twelve weeks, read strand by strand
The table below sets the twelve teaching weeks of a cohort against the three strands a week is built from. Every cell can be selected, with a pointer or from the keyboard, and the panel beside the table then describes what that strand asks of a candidate in that week.
| Wk | Taught | Reading | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |||
| 2 | |||
| 3 | |||
| 4 | |||
| 5 | |||
| 6 | |||
| 7 | |||
| 8 | |||
| 9 | |||
| 10 | |||
| 11 | |||
| 12 |
Week 1 · Taught session
Orientation
The cohort meets as one group, the twelve-week map is issued, and the first module opens with its framing session.
The three strands are the three halves the week is planned in: what is taught, what is read for it, and what is written out of it. A cell reading None due is a week whose reading load is the heavier one.
06Hours
Ten notional hours to a credit is a constant of the national framework, not a figure this company sets.
10hours to a credit
Setting a programme against its notional hours
Credit at post-graduate level is expressed in notional hours of learning, and one credit stands for ten notional hours of a candidate’s time. That constant is fixed by the national credit framework and is not a figure this company sets. Everything else in the calculation below is supplied by whoever is reading it: the number of modules taken, the credit weight of each, the length of the cohort in weeks and the contact hours a week carries.
The arithmetic is printed line by line so that it can be checked. It resolves the total notional hours of a programme and the share of those hours falling outside taught contact; it is a planning figure derived from the four numbers entered, and it is neither a statement of a candidate’s registered credit nor the timetable of any cohort this company runs.
- Notional hours per credit
- 10, a fixed constant
- Total credits, being modules × credits per module
- 4 × 20 = 80
- Total notional hours, being total credits × 10
- 80 × 10 = 800
- Contact hours across the cohort, being contact per week × weeks
- 6 × 12 = 72
- Independent study, being notional hours − contact hours
- 800 − 72 = 728
A guide only. The figure stops at the total for the programme and is not divided back into a weekly commitment, because the weeks of a cohort are not equal to one another.
07Supervision
Fortnightly during the taught weeks, monthly after them, and a written record of every meeting.
4milestones
Supervision of the independent project, and the milestones it passes
The independent research project runs alongside the taught weeks and continues after they close. Supervision is delivered as scheduled meetings of one hour with the allocated supervisor, held fortnightly during the taught weeks and monthly after them, and a written record of each meeting is placed on the candidate’s supervisory file.
Four milestones govern the project. The working question and the outline method are agreed in the fourth week. The proposal is submitted in the eighth week and is either accepted or returned for one revision. Where a project involves human participants, personal records or fieldwork on a third party’s premises, a governance and ethics check is completed before any evidence is gathered, and the project does not proceed to that stage until the check is recorded as complete. A full draft is read by the supervisor in the closing stage, and the comment on that draft is the last formal comment a candidate receives before submission.
A supervisor reads and comments on one full draft and on one chapter-length extract in addition to it. Further reading of drafts is a matter for the supervisor to agree with the candidate. Where a candidate needs to suspend study, the suspension is recorded against the cohort file and the remaining milestones are re-dated from the point of return, so that the sequence of the four milestones is preserved.
Milestone one Working question and outline method week four
Agreed with the supervisor at the point the first module closes. It is the milestone that decides what the remaining reading is for, and a substantial move in the subject at this stage is the one occasion on which the supervisor allocation is reviewed.
Milestone two Proposal accepted, or returned once week eight
The proposal submitted as assessed work is also the project milestone. A returned proposal is revised once against the written comment, and the revision is read by the same supervisor who read the original.
Milestone three Governance and ethics check recorded before evidence is gathered
Required where a project involves human participants, personal records or fieldwork on a third party’s premises. The check produces its own file, which states what was proposed and what was recorded as complete, and the project waits at this point until the record exists.
Milestone four Full draft read by the supervisor closing stage
One full draft and one chapter-length extract are read and commented on. The comment on the full draft is the last formal comment a candidate receives, and what follows it is the candidate’s own revision.
The meeting pattern and the supervisory record are set out on the supervision sheet