The University of Gloucestershire will ditch using the word “freshers” for the week new students move into the county next month as it says some finds it has “negative connotations”.

The event will be replaced with “Welcome 2020” and incoming first years will be offered online events so they can meet new people while “keeping one-another safe” to help stop any potential spread of coronavirus.

Outdoor events will also be offered included a cinema, comedy night and the welcome fayre – where vendors will pitch stalls to promote university clubs and societies.

The president of the university’s students union Luc Brown said it is being doing for health and safety reasons.

Luc Brown, University of Gloucestershire Students’ Union President said: “We know that for some people the term “freshers” has particular, negative connotations.

“We wanted to move away from that and towards what the first few weeks of the year should be about – welcoming our new students to the University and to Gloucestershire, so that’s why we’ve gone for ‘Welcome 2020’.”

“The safety, health and wellbeing of our students and the wider community is of course the most important thing to us when we’re thinking about events for the start of next year.

“We think our outdoor cinema, comedy night and Welcome Fayre along with a host of online events will give new students the opportunity to meet new friends for life whilst keeping one-another safe.

“We’re also working with our societies to be able to host some of the physical events online too, to give our students an option when it comes to Welcome.

“At times it’s easy to forget that we’re still in a global pandemic – it would be really wrong to hold in-person events that we thought were high risk and that’s why we’ve made the changes we have.

“We’re pleased to hear about the steps that venues in Gloucester are making to become ‘Covid-19 safe’ following a really tough period for those in the night-time economy.

“As a Purple Flag city, we know Gloucester is a destination safely enjoyed by a number of students and we hope that this continues to be the case in these really difficult times.”