Supporting you to achieve your full potential

We want to ensure that you know about the various ways that the University will support you to achieve your full potential. We know that unforeseen circumstances can have a serious impact on your study, outcomes and wellbeing. There are mechanisms in place to ensure that you have every opportunity to reach your full potential. This is a reminder of the support systems available such as extensions to deadline, intermission, learning support plans and additional consideration.

Last academic year we introduced the additional consideration process to consider unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances that students face, and to protect you from the impact of these circumstances on your achievement. This is a reminder of the process and notes that there is a change to the timescale for submitting requests.

Download our help documents

• Helping students to achieve their full potential
• Additional Consideration: Facing serious unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances?

Key things to remember about additional consideration

1. If you have faced serious unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances which have affected an assessment, you can submit a request for Additional Consideration.

2. You can only submit a request for Additional Consideration after the affected assessment date – you must submit the request by the published deadline.

3. There are two routes – self-certification and a full request.

• Self-certification – this is for a time-bound assessment (e.g. an examination), supporting documentation is not required and the deadline is 7 days after the impacted assessment. You can submit one request per semester.
• Full request – this is for circumstances which lasted for more than 7 days, and for assessments not covered by self-certification (e.g. essays, reports), supporting documentation is required and the deadline is 14 days after the last impacted assessment.

4. If your request is upheld, you will normally get a further opportunity to undertake the assessment without penalty – called a deferral – during the resit period, but this can vary and is not automatic. Your Course Examination Board will consider how it should be applied.

5. Speak to your Personal Academic Tutor or Student Support and Guidance Tutor (SSGT) or Course Leader or the BSU to get advice and guidance.

Some of these measures and their outcomes may carry financial implications – we encourage you to read more about this and to contact the Student Advice Service team if you would like to discuss this further.