Extenuating Circumstances

Policy

The Extenuating Circumstances procedure is there to help with difficulties with your health or personal life, which have negatively impacted your ability to attend, complete or submit an assessment on time. Generally speaking, serious long-term circumstances that have a significant effect on your ability to study will be expected to result in you requesting a suspension of your studies rather than extenuating circumstances.

It is helpful to speak with your Personal Tutor, so that you can get support from your academic department. If they are aware of your difficulties they can provide you with a statement to support your online ECF submission.

If you attend an exam or submit an assignment on time, you have declared yourself ‘Fit to Sit’ and an ECF is highly unlikely to be accepted. An ECF will only be considered if you are unable to submit coursework on time, missed an exam or were taken ill during an exam.

Procedure

You must complete and submit the ECF by the following dates for both coursework and exams: 

• Teaching Block 1 (inc the assessment period and directed activity that follows): 11th February 2022 
• Teaching Block 2 (inc the Formal Examination Period that follows): 17th June 2022 
• Referral Period: 29th July 2022 
• Summer Block: 3rd October 2022

If valid, for Exam assessments you will receive a deferral exam in the referral period.

For Coursework assessments you will have either:

The additional 10 working days of the late submission period to submit your work, if sufficient, or

1. A deferral piece of work to be submitted in the referral period at the end of the year, if the circumstances are such that 10 working days is not sufficient to remedy the situation
   
   You should hear back with a decision for your ECF within 10 working days. You should be sent an email and the decision will be posted on your Student View - My Results - View, Add or Amend EC Claim.

Evidence

To request support through the Extenuating Circumstances procedure you will need to complete the online form including providing the following:

A Statement of Case

• Outline your current circumstances describe how you have been affected by them in this period of time and why you feel like you are unable to complete your work to your true ability.
• What outcome you would like your ECF to have.
• Give details of what evidence you have to support your circumstances
• You can also describe any support that you have or are receiving,
• Include all relevant information as clearly and concisely as possible, usually no more than 500 words.

Evidence as required (see table). To apply, you need go to the My Results section of your Student View and submit a claim. There are more instructions on how to use Student View on MyPort.

Assessments affected by Covid

Please note that with the rise in Covid-19 as a result of the Omicron variant, The University has taken the following measures to support students who are still adversely affected by Covid-19 in 2021/22:

The following adjustments have been made to the Extenuating Circumstances criteria to include the following:

• From 1 January 2021, and for the remainder of the 2021/22 academic year, a student who has tested positive for Covid-19 and/or is following government advice to self-isolate may submit extenuating circumstances to self-certify for up to fourteen days, and may self-certify more than once within the time period permissible for Extenuating Circumstances.
• For the period up to and including 26 January 2022, students may self-certify for up to 28 days. Where the period of illness or self-isolation commences on 27 January or later, the fourteen-day self-certification period applies.
• Where a student is undertaking an assessment remotely (not on University premises), a student may submit extenuating circumstances for computing difficulties. This applies only to Teaching Block 1 assessments which have changed from in-person to online between 24 January to 4 February.