Mitigating Circumstances: update to policy

We have made an important change to the process for mitigating circumstances and introduced a new short-term sickness notification procedure for the 2013-14 academic year. Please take a moment to understand what this could mean for you if you need to submit evidence of short-term sickness for a coursework extension, exam postponement or Board consideration of circumstances.

Previously, you needed to provide a medical certificate / other appropriate independently verified evidence for all mitigating circumstances requests which may have been difficult or costly to obtain for cases of short-term sickness. Short-term sickness is an illness which lasts no longer than 5 days. ย The University has now introduced a new procedure whereby you can notify us of short-term sickness. The key points to be aware of are:

  • You must phone your Programme or Course Administrator on the first day you realise that your assessment performance may be affected by sickness or prevent you from meeting an assignment deadline/sitting an exam. Other forms of communication will not be accepted.
  • The Administrator will complete a โ€˜Short-Term Sickness Notification Formโ€™ and email this to you. You then need to submit this as evidence along with the relevant completed Extension/Exam Postponement Request Form or Board Consideration of Circumstances Request Form.
  • NB You will not be able to inform us of your sickness retrospectively, i.e. after your assignment deadline/time of your exam under the short-term sickness notification procedure. Where necessary, the telephone call can be made on the day of the assessment, but must be before the submission deadline/start of the exam and no later than 4pm.
  • NB If your sickness lasts more than 5 days, you must provide a medical certificate/other appropriately verified evidence in order for your circumstances to be considered.

The full short-term sickness procedure can be found in 6J โ€“ Mitigating Circumstances including Extensions: Policy and Procedure (see Section 1.2 in Appendix 3 and Appendix 6 in particular). This document and other academic regulations, policies and procedures concerning students can be accessed throughout the year on the Student Portal under Rules and Regulations should you need to consult them. If you find you have a query in relation to any of the documents, please discuss these with the relevant member of your course team, your administrator or the SUBU advice team.