Extenuating circumstances

What Goldsmiths consider extenuating circumstances

Extenuating Circumstances categories that are considered by Goldsmiths include serious medical conditions, trauma, bereavement and court attendance.

See the full list of acceptable and unacceptable categories.

Self-Certification required

Students do not need to provide evidence of their extenuating circumstances. Instead, students must self-certify by providing a written statement to explain their circumstances, and then to explain the impact those circumstances have had on their assessments.

Students with physical or mental impairments

Students with physical or mental impairments that have a substantial and long-term negative impact on their ability to study and/or to engage with assessments should seek support and reasonable adjustments to assessment through the Disability Service.

Reasonable adjustments and support, including variable adjustments such as extensions, should be approved as part of a Reasonable Adjustment Student Agreement (RASA), and should not be accommodated by using the Extenuating Circumstances Policy.

Students who have a universal reasonable adjustment (URA) or RASA in place that permits extensions to assessment deadlines, but who experience other extenuating circumstances (not relating to the circumstances on which their RASA is based) affecting their ability to engage with assessments, can make an Extenuating Circumstances application in the usual way.

What the outcomes can be

If an extenuating circumstances application is accepted the following can be applied:

• Deferral - your assessment/exam may be deferred to the next available assessment period in the current academic year, eg late summer resit period. Where possible, students should continue to work on their assessment until they receive an outcome from their application. If you are a final year student, please know that a deferral may prevent you from attending the summer graduation

• Deferral to the following session - your assessment/exam may be deferred to the next available assessment period in the following academic year. Depending on how many assessments are affected and deferred this could have an impact on your ability to progress to the next level of study if you have not met the progression requirements for your programme of study. Where possible, students should continue to work on their assessment until they receive an outcome from their application. If you are a final year student, please know that a deferral will prevent you from attending the summer graduation

• Change to a deadline - an extension to an assessment deadline may be granted which can be a minimum of 5 working days or a longer extension depending on the circumstances and their impact. This is not suitable for all assessments, (e.g. take-home papers, unseen exams and timed examinations). For these assessment types, you should request a deferral

  Students should continue to work on their assessment even if a Change to Deadline is needed:

  - If requesting a change to deadline, you must continue to work on your assessment to the original deadline, where     possible.

  - When submitting an application during a busy period, applications can take up to 10 working days to process. You will have access to submit a late submission on the VLE (Learn.gold) up to 5 working days after the deadline. If your EC application is approved, your submission will be accepted. If your EC application is rejected, your submission will not be accepted, and you will receive communication following the Board of Examiners on your next steps.

• Discount of an Attempt - the assessment deadline has taken place and there are circumstances not previously considered which impacted your assessment. Consideration can be given to discount the attempt and grant you a new attempt

Restrictions to an Application

An assessment element can only be deferred following approval of an EC application and, from 2021/22 can normally only be deferred a maximum of two times.

Extenuation may not be applied more than once to the same assessment element unless there are new extenuating circumstances presented by the student.

How to apply

Applications should be submitted no earlier than 14 working days before a deadline or examination and no later than 7 working days after a deadline or examination.

Applications submitted outside of this timeframe will be rejected unless you can demonstrate that you were prevented from disclosing the circumstances at the time.

Consideration

Your application will be considered by the Registry Operations team. 

Registry Operations will establish whether your application meets the criteria and make a decision which they will communicate to you. These decisions are ratified by the Board of Examiners.

Decision

You will receive the outcome via email and this will also be updated on MyGoldsmiths, confirming any next steps. 

To check the status of your Extenuating Circumstances application login to MyGoldsmiths and select 'My Extenuating Circumstances' from the menu on the right. If your EC application is still pending after 10 working days, please submit an enquiry form.

If you are not satisfied you can contact the EC team. Once the mark for your assessment is ratified by the Board of Examiners, you can appeal the decision if you have grounds.

From 2023/24, following a recent change approved by Academic Board, you are now able to request a review of a rejected EC application for a change to deadline, where it may impact your ability to progress to the next level of study or complete your programme on time. Details of how to request a review will be included in your EC outcome message where this route is available to you. Outside of this timeframe, you may still follow the academic appeals process.