Version 1.0 - Last Updated: 25 Oct 2023

Creating a part-time undergraduate course

Term dates


Term dates let us determine when to pay your students. This depends on how long they're studying with you that year.

It is important that the number of teaching weeks you enter on CMS is accurate. Teaching weeks are weeks when your students are attending lectures, doing course work or taking exams.

Term start dates

Your term dates should be linked to the season when your course begins.

There are restrictions on how early a term can begin. This is to make sure students’ payments are spread out throughout the academic year.

 

Academic year start: Autumn (August to December)

Term 1 start no earlier than 1 August

Term 2 start no earlier than 1 January

Term 3 start no earlier than 1 April

 

Academic year start: Winter (January to March)

Term 1 start no earlier than 1 January

Term 2 start no earlier than 1 April

Term 3 start no earlier than 1 July

 

Academic year start: Spring (April to June)

Term 1 start no earlier than 1 April

Term 2 start no earlier than 1 July

Term 3 start no earlier than 1 January

 

Academic year start: Summer (July)

Term 1 start no earlier than 1 July

Term 2 start no earlier than 1 January

Term 3 start no earlier than 1 April

 

We will not make payments to students beyond the end of the academic year. If a course starts on 12 October 2023 and ends on 8 October 2024, we'll pay any funding within the academic year in which the course starts. In this example, we'll complete payments by 31 August.

If a bank holiday falls at the beginning of April, the term 3 start date must be no earlier than 3 April. Our system schedules payments before the bank holiday. This means that even if the term 3 start date falls on 1 or 2 April, we'll need to process the payments in March.

You should not set the term start and end dates for a Saturday or Sunday when the course does not start or end on either of those days.


Freshers and exam weeks

Freshers weeks

Attendance on a course includes students engaging with learning activities such as scheduled lectures or faculty inductions. Term dates should not include freshers' activities or social events before the start of attendance.

Please contact your HEP Account Manager if if you have questions on what to include in your term dates.


Exam weeks

You should include exam periods in your term dates, as they count towards your overall teaching weeks. You should not include periods when students are waiting for their results or resitting exams.


Holiday periods

You should account for holiday periods when you enter term dates. Do not include them within any term.

For example, if a course started in October, we'd expect the term dates to exclude Christmas and Easter holiday periods.

We only need you to enter the start and end date of each term on CMS. If you have a midterm holiday, you should remove a week from your term length.


Semesters or terms?

Many universities and colleges have 2 semesters, rather than 3 separate terms.

We pay students at 3 points throughout their academic year, so we still need the 3 terms in our systems.

If you have semesters, you should create term dates that reflect your students’ study pattern as closely as possible. You could use any holiday periods in the second semester as a natural break for your terms.

Example 1

Semester 1 begins: Monday 11 September 2023

Semester 1 ends: Friday 19 January 2024

Winter break: Monday 18 December 2023 to Monday 1 January 2024

Semester 2 begins: Monday 22 January 2024

Semester 2 ends: Friday 31 May 2024

Easter break: Monday 1 April 2024 to Friday 12 April 2024

You could split these using holiday periods as breaks between terms:

Term 1 – 11 September 2023 to 15 December 2023

Term 2 – 2 January 2024 to 29 March 2023

Term 3 – 17 April 2023 to 2 June 2023

Example 2

Semester 1 begins: Tuesday 2 January 2024

Semester 1 ends: Friday 10 May 2024

Easter break: Monday 1 April 2024 to Friday 12 April 2024

Semester 2 begins: Monday 13 May 2024

Semester 2 ends: Friday 27 September 2024

Summer break: Monday 1 July to Friday 12 July

You could split these using holiday periods as breaks between terms:

Term 1 – 2 January 2024 to 29 March 2024

Term 2 – 15 April 2024 to 28 June 2024

Term 3 – 15 July 2024 to 27 September 2024


Fees

You can enter different fees at course level for each domicile.

The system will automatically enter the last figure you entered. Please check the correct fee is entered for each domicile.