Academic Support Extenuating Circumstances

Extenuating circumstances (ECs) are situations that:

• You could not predict what would happen;
• You had no control over;
• Have seriously affected your ability to study or do your assessment.

ECs: Examples of ECs could be; Illness or injury that has lasted for longer than one week and is serious enough to stop you from researching, writing, revising for your assessments and studying as normal. A further example is family difficulties (including crises, serious illness, unexpected childcare or caring responsibilities) meaning you need to provide significant support.

If you believe you have ECs and can provide evidence of this, you can make a claim using the Extenuating Circumstances Form.

You must submit your claim as soon as possible. Do not wait to submit your EC form for any reason, even if you do not yet have all your evidence. Your School will have individual deadline dates for submission of ECs in relation to exams and other assessments.

If your ECs happen on the day of an exam (whether it is campus-based or an online examination), you must submit your EC form within 24 hours of the scheduled end time of the exam (for example, if you have a 3-hour exam starting at 09:00 am, the scheduled end time would be 12:00 noon, therefore you will have 24 hours from 12:00 noon to submit your ECF).

Your School or Department will publish the EC procedure in your student handbook. This will include details of the staff member you will need to submit your EC form to.

You will need to provide evidence with your EC form to support your claim. You should provide evidence by the advertised College deadline.

An example of EC evidence could be; a Letter from a doctor, nurse or relevant professional confirming the effect the circumstances are having on your ability to do the assessment on official stamped or headed paper

You can find further examples of what evidence you can use to support your ECs by visiting the UoB Intranet.

Your School will convene an Extenuating Circumstances Panel (ECP). The ECP will normally be made up of a maximum of five staff members, which will be from your School or department who will discuss your case sensitively. An ECP will recommend one of the following;

• Allow further sit / submit opportunity
• Allow further re-sit / re-submit opportunity
• Waive late penalties
• Repeat the year in full (internal candidate)
• Resit the year in full (external candidate)
• Marks scaling
• ECs carried forward
• Award Notwithstanding Regulations
• Action already taken
• No action required / submission rejected