Tuesday 07-04-2026 - 14:25

On the 11^th of March, the University Senate approved a paper committing to review the Timetabling and Room Booking policy for the academic year 2026/2027. This is a result of significant work from GCU Students’ Association in pushing for Wednesday afternoon’s to be safeguarded for students to compete in sports and participate in extra-curricular activities as well as making timetabling more flexible.

Background

This year the Sports Council and Full-Time Officers have been campaigning hard to ensure that Wednesday afternoons are sufficiently reserved for sports and extra-curricular activities. It is common practise in universities across the country to have policy that ensures Wednesday afternoons are kept free. This is due to the widely reported benefits of sports and other activities on students’ sense of belonging, health, wellbeing and skills.

As it stands, GCU does officially  say no classes should be timetabled on Wednesday afternoons, formalised within the Timetabling and Room Booking policy. However, this is only a small line in the policy, rather than an in-depth section like universities such as Strathclyde’s policy. Additionally, many students are not aware this is the university’s position as it isn’t widely promoted. This is what the policy says:

However, after speaking to lots of students (especially our student athletes) it was clear students didn’t see this as actually happening.

Additionally, other concerns have been raised about timetabling beyond just Wednesday afternoons. For example, having long 5-hour breaks between classes or only having a 1-hour class one day and requiring paying high costs to commute in for the hour. It is clear that students want timetabling to be more flexible, but timetabling is a tricky process to get right and is quite complicated to change. The FTO’s have been talking to the University extensively about timetabling and how we can get it right for students.

So, what has actually happened this year?

This year we have worked a lot on this; however, University level policy changes are complicated and hard to accomplish in a year.

Surveys:

• Two surveys were conducted by GCU students, Sports Council member Katie Duncan and myself (Vice-President GSBS/Sports Lead), to uncover students experiences of sports/Wednesday afternoons at GCU. 181 students were surveyed in total.

• The main results about sports in general were: the positive impact on mental health, the sense of community, that there is a lack of funding and investment into sports at GCU, sporting achievements are not sufficiently recognised by the university and the facilities at GCU are insufficient.
• The main results about Wednesday afternoons were: most students surveyed have had many classes scheduled on Wednesday afternoons, not being able to make up teams due to classes, the stress caused by timetabling conflicts and GCU is perceived to be different from other UK institutions in relation to their policy on Wednesday Afternoons.
• For more information, please see this presentation that I delivered to the University Executive Team.

Research:

• Policy surrounding Wednesday afternoon at other institutions both locally (Strathclyde and Glasgow) and at other post-92 institutions (Herriot-Watt and Robert Gordons) was reviewed.
• A detailed breakdown of these policies was presented to the University Executive Team to show areas we could draw from them and to highlight the poorer standard of our policy in comparison.
• Recommendations based on these policies were made.

Current policy to be added to the website:

• The current policy was hard to find as it wasn’t on the website anywhere, despite all GCU policies being online. I requested the current policy be added to the website so it is easily accessed and can be referred back by students when asking to be permitted to miss class. This hopefully will reduce confusion or ambiguity among students and staff.
• After repeatedly asking, the policy is now on the website so all students can read it!

Papers written:

• A report was written compiling all the above information and submitted to the University Executive Team x Students’ Association joint monthly meeting.
• It was suggested by the University Executive Team that I write a new policy that they could consider, so I wrote an amendment to the current Wednesday afternoon section of the policy. I brought this back to the Executive.
• Both the mentioned papers went to various student committees (Sports Council, SAGE, Student Voice, London Council) to be reviewed and ensure student feedback was incorporated. They were always received positively.
• Finally, I wrote a paper summarising these activities and seeking approval from the University Senate (the highest-level committee on academic policy) to commit to reviewing the Timetabling and Room Booking policy for the next academic year.

The reason this was taken to Senate is to ensure that our work from the year is not lost during the transition between the Outgoing and Incoming Full Time Officers and other priorities. Additionally, a review and refresh of the Timetabling and Room Booking policy will take time and it is important that is done properly and with students involved in the process.

The exciting news is that there will definitely be a refreshed timetabling policy implemented as soon as practically possible! This means now is the time to share feedback on your experience with timetabling! Please get in contact with any of the FTO’s to share this feedback!

I am happy to share any of the papers that have been mentioned, if you are interested, and to answer any questions. You can find me at vp.gsbs@gcustudents.co.uk, +44 7345 479622 or @vp_gsbs on IG!