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1. Upcoming Deadlines and Key Dates
1st April – TEI Forum and Election of Chair
1st April – Announce results of CAMB student elections
7th April - TEIs to ask Common Awards students to send any feedback for the Management Board to the CAMB student representatives
11th April – launch of the Common Awards Student Survey 2025
28th April – Common Awards Webinar - Disability and Theology
2. Common Awards Student Survey 2025
The 2024/25 Common Awards Student Survey will run from Friday 11th April – Friday 30th May 2025. The survey will be managed and analysed by Durham, with TEI-specific results shared with each TEI over the summer. The survey will be available to all students registered on Common Awards programmes in 2024/25.
3. Curriculum Updates
Three new programmes have been approved for delivery from September 2025. They are:
Postgraduate programmes:
V62614
Postgraduate Certificate in Church Law
V62612
Postgraduate Diploma in Church Law
V62607
MA in Church Law
4. TEI Invoices
All TEIs should have received invoices at the beginning of March. The invoices are based on a snapshot of student records data from 1st December; all changes communicated to us before 1st December have been reflected in the invoices. A gentle reminder that payments are expected within 30 days.
If there are any questions or queries regarding invoices, please contact the team as soon as possible.
5. TEI Forum
The next TEI Forum will be taking place on 1st April. TEI Forum members are reminded to please contact Lucy Dallas (Chair) directly with any agenda items.
Chairperson elections
At the next meeting of the TEI Forum on 1st April, a formal election will be facilitated to appoint a new Chair, who would be appointed for a period of three years.
We will run the Election during the TEI Forum via an anonymous poll function in Zoom. TEI Forum members have been provided with the nominations in advance of the meeting.
We also recognise that not all Forum members will be able to attend the Forum on 1st April, so would like to invite colleagues to cast their vote directly with the Common Awards Team. This will be held in confidence, but will unfortunately will not be anonymous. Please contact the Common Awards Team with confirmation of the name of the candidate you would like to elect to this position. Please note that 'Reopen Nominations' is also considered a candidate in the elections. The election results will be announced at the end of the TEI Forum, so please cast your vote before this time.
6. Boards of Examiners
7. The Annual Conference for Theological Educators 2025
The Annual Conference for Theological Educators 2025
The 2025 Annual Conference for Theological Educators will be taking place on July 16th – 18th, at Durham University.
*Please note a change in venue*
The conference was originally advertised as taking place in College Court, Leicester. Unfortunately, we recently received notice that the venue was closing down in April, and all future bookings were cancelled.
We have secured an alternative venue at Durham University on the same dates. Due to the short notice, we may not be able to house all delegates within the same college and there may be some short walks (5–10 minutes) between accommodation/dining and teaching venues, but we will have transport available for those with mobility difficulties.
Bookings will open shortly and details will be sent to TEI Key Contacts.
This conference is FREE* to all Common Awards staff (all core and associate staff who are or expect to be involved in teaching, assessing or administering Common Awards programmes in the designated Common Awards TEIs).
*Travel expenses not included.
This year’s theme is Children, Youth and Theological Education
Our speakers will include
For more information, please visit the Common Awards website conference page
8. Webinar series
Disability and Theology
Monday, April 28th at 2pm
Please use this link to join the webinar, which will be held on Microsoft Teams
The Common Awards team is delighted to host Dr Naomi Jacobs and Rev Dr Hannah Lewis for a webinar discussing Disability Justice and Theological Education.
Naomi Lawson Jacobs (they/them), who is disabled and neurodivergent, is the co-author of At the Gates: Disability, Justice and the Churches (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2022). Based on participatory research with disabled Christians, the book grew out of a PhD thesis in religious studies. Naomi is a research associate at Manchester Metropolitan University. They are currently editing a volume of disability theology written by disabled people, as well as co-editing a special issue of a disability studies journal on social-scientific research on religion and disability. Naomi is a trustee for Disability Rights UK and sits on the Church of England’s Neurodiversity Working Group.
Revd Dr Hannah Lewis is a Deaf priest, bilingual in BSL and English, currently working in Oxford diocese. She is also a freelance researcher, writer and presenter. Her PhD thesis was published as Deaf Liberation Theology (Ashgate, 2007) and she has published a number of journal articles and book chapters since then, most recently in Challenging Contextuality: Bibles and Biblical Scholarship in Context ed. Louise J. Lawrence, Peter-Ben Smit, Hannah M. Strommen, Charlene van der Walt (OUP, 2023).
The webinar will take place online on MSTeams on April 28th 2025 from 2 pm to 4 pm. This webinar will include breakout groups and group discussion. BSL interpretation will be available.
The webinar leaders would appreciate knowing any key questions or discussion points you would like to raise beforehand. Please feel free to email Anupama (anupama.m.ranawana@durham.ac.uk) with any questions you might like to raise.
If you would like to be placed in a BSL only breakout group, or have any accessibility needs, please email Anupama at the email address above.
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Making ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ for Disabled Students
A webinar with Dr Stephen Campbell, Leeds Trinity University
Wednesday 4th June, 2.00pm – 3.30pm
This webinar will provide a chance for TEI staff to learn more about ‘reasonable adjustments’, exploring how our teaching, assessment, and student support can be adapted to provide a better experience for disabled students.
Dr Campbell is the author of Supporting Disabled Students in Higher Education: The Reasonable Adjustments Handbook (Routledge, 2023), an excellent guide to creative and practical responses to the needs of students with a wide range of disabilities. The webinar will provide an opportunity to hear about his work, and then to discuss with him how it might apply in the TEI context.
The webinar is open to teaching and administrative staff at any TEI offering Common Awards programmes. It will be recorded, and the recording made available to TEI staff after the event.
We are pleased to announce that recordings of three recent webinars are now available online:
Neurodiverse Learning in Adult Theological Education (10th February 2025) https://youtu.be/iEuUT_WkzXI
God on the Move: Gypsy Roma Traveller (GRT) Theology and Ministry (7th March 2024) https://youtu.be/iSv1iMC2eSk
Knowledge is Power: Justice and Theologising in ’The Global South’ (7th May 2024) https://youtu.be/77KKJH8qnkM
9. TCEN Conference
Theological Colleges Environment Network (TCEN) are hosting an online interactive webinar on Christian leadership in an environmentally challenging world.
This event on Wednesday 11 June 2025, 10.00am-12-noon, is intended for students, staff (teaching and non-teaching) and trustees of theological colleges.
Details are:
We will be considering what is needed to resource Christian leadership for a world experiencing increasing environmental challenges.
The Rt Revd Graham Usher will be our first speaker. Bishop Graham is the Bishop of Norwich and is the lead bishop on the environment. He is an ecologist and is concerned for biodiversity, meeting net zero and working in partnership on environmental issues.
Our second speaker is Dr Martin Hodson, who will focus our thinking on environmental disaster management. What do we do when a flood/drought/heatwave hits our community? How can a parish church be better placed to support its community through these times? Martin is an environmental scientist with a long term involvement with the Christian environmental movement.
The webinar will be interactive with talks, time for questions and break out rooms. Anyone with an interest in Theological Education is welcome to sign up. We especially encourage students, tutors and operational staff from TEIs to join us.
Follow this link to sign up for this interactive webinar.
https://jri.org.uk/book_events/tcen-online-gathering/
10. Further Information
The full 2024/2025 academic calendar is available here.
With thanks,
The Common Awards Team
