Term dates

If you offer postgraduate master’s courses, you must enter 3 sets of term dates for all course years. This is so students receive their funding payments throughout the period of their study.

The term dates you enter determine the students' payment dates. If you do not have terms, we still need 3 terms in our system. This is because we pay students at 3 points throughout the academic year. You should create term dates that reflect the study pattern of your students. For example, you could use any holiday periods as a natural term break.

You should include exam periods in your term dates. However, do not include periods when students are waiting for their results or resitting exams.

If the final course year is shorter than the rest of the course years, your term dates should reflect that. For example, if the course duration is 15 months, the second year would be 3 months long. The last year of study still needs 3 terms regardless of the length. In this example, the 3 term dates for year 2 could be each of the 3 remaining months.

You can find further examples in the Term date scenarios section under this chapter.

If you enter a term start or end date that's on a weekend, the system will ask you to confirm this is correct before it lets you save the course.

Term date scenarios

Scenario 1

For a 3-year part-time course, the term dates may look like this:

Year 1

Term 1: 27 August to 21 December
Term 2: 14 January to 19 April
Term 3: 7 May to 20 July

Year 2

Term 1: 27 August to 21 December
Term 2: 14 January to 19 April
Term 3: 7 May to 20 July

Year 3

Term 1: 27 August to 21 December
Term 2: 14 January to 19 April
Term 3: 7 May to 20 July

Scenario 2

For an 18-month full-time course, the term dates may look like this:

Year 1

Term 1: 27 August to 21 December
Term 2: 14 January to 19 April
Term 3: 7 May to 20 July

Year 2

Term 1: 27 August to 25 October
Term 2: 28 October to 21 December
Term 3: 13 January to 21 February

Adding intakes

When you create a new course and enter term dates for all years, there is an option to add another intake.

If the course you're creating has a September start, you can enter another intake that starts later in the academic year, for example in January.

You cannot add an intake once you have saved a course, so you should add all intakes before you save.

You can create up to 12 intakes under a postgraduate master’s course – only one per month.

If you need to, you can amend the first intake month when you save the course in the new academic year. For example, if your course had a September intake in the previous academic year, you can change this to October in the new academic year.