Dear all,

This Tuesday there were five – count them, five – students in the workshop. This is obviously not sustainable, and having looked at the timetable none of you have classes on Monday morning. Consequently the Tuesday workshop slot has now been cancelled. Those who were in the Tuesday workshop should find that your timetable now reflects this and shows a workshop on Monday morning.

There are two workshop slots on Monday morning: 9am-11am and 11am-1pm. I tend to consider them one single big long 4 hour slot so I am happy for you to come at any time during that period. However, you are reminded that attendance at all scheduled teaching events is compulsory. YOU MUST ATTEND LECTURES AND WORKSHOPS UNDER UNIVERSITY REGULATIONS. From my perspective, my attitude is that if you are doing OK I am not going to chase you very much about missing the odd lecture but if you are a perennial non-attender and if you are also currently sitting on less than 30% then you are probably going to fail. If that describes you, then it is in your own hands to fix things. Watch the lecture videos, get yourself up to speed, come to workshops. Come and see me during my office hours to discuss possible emergency strategies.

In that vein, you should all have had an email from me detailing your current marks to date. Three quarters of the module has passed so if you have 30% currently, you should be on target to get 40% (a pass mark) by the end if you stay on target. If you have less than 30% (and there is an alarming number of you) then you are in trouble. If you’ve got 40%+ then you’ve passed the module already – congratulations!

Finally, as I mentioned in the lecture, after the success of the codebash I have decided to accept late submissions for all previous medal activities. In short: if you go back and do medals from past units (e.g. Thinking Like A Programmer, the first Java unit, etc) they WILL count towards your final mark.

Good luck and see you all on Monday,

Paul