The creation of a supervision report provides you with the name and crsid of any given pupil’s Director of Studies (DoS) and Tutor. You can also find details of DoSes in the College’s Tripos by Tripos list of academic staff. Please contact us if you have questions regarding the submission or processing of reports, queries about particular students you are supervising, what we expect in your subject or other matters.
Please make every effort to submit your reports each term by the Monday before the end of Full Term. See the relevant University webpages for term dates. That timing allows Directors of Studies and Tutors to discuss reports in end-of-term meetings with students. Even if this means submitting a report before all supervisions have been conducted, we’d rather have the report available than nothing. Students appreciate this chance to discuss reports. The content can also inform planning for vacation study, revision or remedial effort. It is fine to submit a report that states some supervisions are yet to be given and a further report later, not claiming any additional hours.
We also ask Directors of Studies to approve supervision reports within a week of the end of Full Term. These arrangements allow payments to reach supervisors in the last week of December, March and June.
Supervisors must apply for a supervisor CamCors account annually. They can do so by completing an application form available online.
Register for a CamCors account
If you are a UK or Irish passport holder: You do not need to prove your right to work as a supervisor so you can report and claim through CamCORS once you have been registered
If you do not hold a current UK or Irish passport: There are certain rules that you need to follow before you can begin to supervise any students, so please read the emails issued at the start of term by the Tutorial Office for further details. The process involves undertaking a Right to Work check and being issued with a Worker’s Agreement.
If you do not comply with the process explained in the email, you cannot be paid for any supervision work you have undertaken, as you would have been working illegally and your student visa could be revoked.
You must contact the Tutorial Office as soon as you are asked to supervise for any undergraduate students.
Note: A Worker’s Agreement must be renewed every academic year. You cannot continue to supervise in subsequent years unless you are issued with a new agreement for that year.
New supervisors will be directed to the online training module when they register in CamCORS. This training is mandatory.
Payment for new supervisor training is handled centrally by the Office of Intercollegiate Services and not by individual Colleges. Payments will be made through a bulk process after the submission and approval of reports. You need not claim for this payment. The payment covers the intercollegiate training. In the rare instances where a department may offer training any issues connected to payment should be referred to the Department and not to Colleges.
The College provides rooms that may be booked by Queens’ supervisors. All enquiries should be directed to the Conference & Events team (email room.bookings@queens.cam.ac.uk), who will advise as to which venue is suitable and will also be able to check if the room is available. No charge will be made when supervising Queens’ students.
Details of the College’s policies on such matters as safeguarding, fitness to study, discipline, free speech and other matters may be found in our Legal and Governance pages. These policy documents can supplement the general safeguarding guidance given to all supervisors but are not intended to impose any further requirements on you as a supervisor.
There is a specific policy covering Student Staff relationships:
Our precise approach to supervisions varies by Tripos, Tripos part, type of paper and sometimes by individual student circumstances. Our core generic advice would be to facilitate student participation in supervisions and not to lecture them; to allow time to respond to students’ questions; and to respond to the particular needs of a given supervision group whilst not losing sight that the process is both an exploration of the subject and part of preparation for Tripos.
We hope that neither supervisors nor students take on more work than is necessary for the system to run smoothly and successfully. If in doubt or if you have concerns that you may be running beyond such limits, please ask the relevant Director of Studies or the Senior Tutor for guidance. Our Student Handbook makes clear the College’s expectations of students about supervisions and their work.
In most cases you should already have been briefed by a Director of Studies about students’ names, contact details, any Student Support Document guidance, the number and frequency of supervisions we anticipate should be given, and the volume and the level of work we will require of the students you teach. Please do not vary from these expectations without first checking with the Director of Studies. Where the relationship is mediated through a departmental role, you may also need to consult course convenors and administrators as well as the relevant Director of Studies on some matters.
If you have serious pastoral or academic concerns please alert the College promptly. We greatly appreciate the role that our supervisors play in supporting students but do not expect them to take on the duties which Directors of Studies, the Health & Wellbeing Team and Tutors provide in managing serious academic or pastoral / wellbeing concerns. Please refer such matters to us rather than seeking to deal with them yourself.
Nor do we expect or encourage supervisors to accede if a student suggests that they wish to tell them something in total confidence, not for onward transmission to others. You may wish to report any such request informally to a member of our Tutorial team such as the Tutor or Senior Tutor. It is often a sign that a student needs additional support. We can then advise and support you appropriately on how to respond to the student.
Supervisors are not expected to become pastoral advisors to students. Their role is an academic one.
Reciprocal peer observation can provide a valuable opportunity for supervisors to share ideas and reflect on the practice and challenges of teaching and learning. It is productive when approached in this way rather than as a narrow scrutiny of ‘performance’. There are many different ways of going about peer observation. This page gives some guidance on a basic structure, including preparation for the observation and for the discussion which follows it. For those who are new to peer observation, there are also some general considerations relating to giving and receiving constructive feedback.
The supervisor to be observed provides information in advance about:
In preparation for a discussion after the observation, the observer should:
To get the most out of having your teaching observed, think about some or all of the following:
If you are new to peer observation, it may be helpful to consider approaches to giving and receiving constructive feedback.
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