In response to race crime in the city and on campus, the University continues to work with local partners (City of York Council and North Yorkshire Police), including conducting joint patrols. The police have recently made arrests and, along with our Campus Safety team, have jointly delivered banning letters to a number of youths as a result of anti-social behaviour including, but not exclusively, hate-related incidents. If you are concerned about an incident, please use our Report + Support tool or contact the police.

The Exams Office and the University's Standing Committee on Assessment have agreed that, in all future closed assessments where they are permitted, calculators will be provided exclusively by the Exams Office. You will no longer be permitted to bring your own calculator to exams. Read about the updated calculator policy for exams.

The Library Café will now be open on weekends from 9am to 4pm during semester time. See all Eat, Shop and Drink opening times.

As evenings grow darker, visibility on the roads is crucial for everyone’s safety. In order to avoid a fine, you must have bike lights on when cycling in the dark. The Travel and Transport team are giving away free bike safety gear on Thursday (27 November), including high visibility vests, bike lights and slap wrap arm reflectors.

From 1 December 2025, we are making some changes to how we structure student support in order to make the experience clearer and more consistent for all students. We are re-focusing our college teams and evolving how you access wellbeing support, with the Student Hub becoming the central point of contact for all support needs. Find out more about our student support update.

You may be asked this week to evaluate your current modules but do you know how to give the most useful feedback? After the module evaluation period closes, your academic department outlines actions they will take as a direct result of what you say. But in order to help them do this, your feedback needs to be specific, courteous, impartial, honest and forward-looking. See our guide to giving constructive feedback in surveys to help your department further enhance your academic journey.

Choose who you want to represent you to make your college experience the best it can be. Vote now in your college elections! Voting closes at 12pm on Friday (28 November).

We provide a range of support for students who are studying without parental support, including funding, social events, and information and guidance from a dedicated advisor. To mark Estranged Students Solidarity Week, our independent students are creating a mosaic. Community is important here at York. Support our Christmas 2025 stocking appeal to help wish our independent students a very happy Christmas.

Learn how to reduce the amount of time you need to spend reading! Our online session Academic reading: what it is and how to do it takes place tomorrow (25 November) and focuses on reading academic texts more effectively by reading actively, critically, and purposefully. See also our guide to managing your reading.

Log on to Handshake, our careers platform, for jobs and opportunities:

See all updates for students on our website:

Things to know this week is produced and distributed by the University's Internal Communications Team. Please email any feedback to 
student-communications@york.ac.uk.

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