Mitigating Circumstances

The university defines mitigating circumstances as the following:

• Situations that you could not have predicted and had no control over (e.g. serious illness, death of someone close, being the victim of a crime, family difficulties and unforeseen financial hardship);

• Situations with significant impact on your ability to undertake assessments/examinations which are independently evidenced in a timely fashion; (e.g. doctor’s note during illness showing duration and level of negative impact);

• Situations that are acute or short term, the timing of which are relevant to the impact on your study (normally within three weeks of the relevant assessment event or deadline).

If you meet these criteria then it is possible to formally apply for mitigating circumstances via the "Personal Circumstances" tab in Tabula.

Students considering submitting mitigating circumstances often find it helpful to discuss their situation with their personal tutor or the Senior Tutor. The University is aware that in some cultures it is considered shameful or embarrassing to disclose the details of these kinds of circumstances to those outside one’s family. This is not the prevailing UK culture and you should be aware that your department and the University are fully supportive of students in difficult circumstances and want to assist if at all possible. If you feel inhibited from talking to a tutor or other member of staff in the first instance, you may also consider talking to a member of your SSLC, the Students’ Union, or a counsellor for initial, informal advice. If you think you might meet the criteria above you can however submit the form without doing so.

(Note: Mitigating circumstances are separate from applying for a deadline extension for an essay which is covered below).

If you would like your mitigating circumstances to be considered by the Exam Board, please declare this via the 'Personal Circumstances' tab of your Tabula profile. Full instructions of how to declare your mitigating circumstances can be found here.

When completing this form, please be aware that is only for the purposes of alerting the exam boards (which are held in June and September) to situations that may have impeded your progress throughout the year. For this reason it is not regularly checked. If you are in need of more immediate support, please contact your personal tutor, the senior tutor Barney Walker (B.Walker.3@warwick.ac.uk) or Wellbeing Support Services who will do their best to help.

If you or someone you know requires emergency support, please contact the Community Safety team on 024 7652 2222 on campus, or call 999 if off campus.

The University's full Mitigating Circumstances policy can be found here.

Self-Certification

Self-certification allows students an automatic 5 working day extension for any eligible assessed work over the course of a single week without the need for additional justification or evidence. Students are permitted to self-certify twice in a single academic year.

For Philosophy Department modules all essays and dissertations are eligible for self-certification, but timed examinations (including take home exams) are not. For modules offered by other Departments, please check with that Department whether individual assessments are eligible.

Instructions of how to self-certify via the self-certification portal on Tabula are available here. Students should be aware it is no longer possible to request self-certification via the request extension button.

Please note self-certifications can only be used to extend the "initial" deadline once. This means you cannot self-certify twice for the same assessment and you cannot self-certify for an assessment for which you have already been granted an extension. If you have already had an extension for your assignment but need additional time, you should request an extension via the "request extension" button for the relevant assignment.

Please also be aware that it is only possible to request a self-certification up to 5 working days (a week) before (and not after) the relevant deadline. This means for example if you wanted to self-certify for all assessments due in the week beginning Monday1st March, the earliest you can apply for self-certification would be Monday 22nd February. It is also not possible to request self-certification for a deadline that has already passed, or for a deadline that has already been extended.

Extensions for Assessed Work

For all other extensions you should use the "request an extension" button for the relevant assignment in Tabula.

Extensions should be requested in Tabula before the deadline has passed or within three days of the expiry of the deadline.

Extensions will only be granted for circumstances over which you have no control, and which you could not have reasonably anticipated. Such circumstances typically involve illness or injury, but extensions may also be granted on compassionate grounds, e.g. death or serious illness in your immediate family.

Extensions will not be granted for time management or 'pressure of work' reasons. Time management is an important skill, and it is expected that you will manage your working schedule to meet deadlines. Neither will extensions be granted for reasons of computer or network failure - students are expected to back up their work to avoid such problems.

For assessed work worth 20% of a module or less, very short extensions can be requested without independent supporting evidence. Please note that the maximum extension that can be granted for take home exams is 24 hours.

Longer extensions, or those for essays worth more than 20% of a module, must come with some supporting evidence. Such supporting documentation (e.g. a medical certificate) should ideally be submitted at the time of the extension request, but if not available can be submitted as soon as possible afterwards.

If Disability Services has specifically recommended that you have flexible deadlines as a reasonable adjustment, please state this as the reason for your extension request and attach the letter from Disability Services recommending flexible deadlines as evidence.

Extensions will not normally be given for longer than 2 weeks. However, in extraordinary circumstances the Exam Board can reduce or waive late penalties beyond this. If you wish the Exam Board to consider waiving late penalties, please declare your mitigating circumstances via the mitigating circumstances tab in Tabula and attach appropriate evidence.

Please note all extension requests are individually manually reviewed by the Senior Tutor. This means that there may be a wait of several days for a decision if you put in a request for an extension, especially if you put in your request during weekends, bank holidays or days on which the University is closed, such as the period between Christmas and New Year. We would therefore recommend that if you think you will need an extension, you put in the extension request a minimum of 2 full working days before the relevant deadline.

In the event your extension request has not been reviewed before the deadline passes and if the reason for your extension request meets the criteria outlined above, we would normally recommend that you do not submit a draft version of your essay “just in case”. If you have made a submission at the time the deadline passes, that work will be marked, and no further extensions can be granted. However, if the deadline passes and you have not submitted your essay, an extension can still be granted.

If you have still not received a decision for your extension request 3 working days (excl. weekends and bank holidays) after the request was submitted, please contact the Philosophy Office at PhilosophyOffice@warwick.ac.uk

In order that all assessed work can be marked in time for the relevant exam board, Tabula will close and not allow any new submissions at 9am on Friday 6th June 2025. After that date, no further extensions can be granted even with extensive mitigating circumstances.

For take-home exams, Tabula will close 1 week after the exam paper is released.

Deferral of an Examination Period

In extreme cases students may be permitted to defer their examinations and assessments to the next examination period (for Philosophy assessments this will normally be the September exam period or shortly before).

If you think this might be appropriate for you, please contact the Senior Tutor (currently Barney Walker) for advice in the first instance.

Please also be aware that a deferral request will always require some sort of documentation to support your request. If you are unsure what would be required in your particular situation, our Senior Tutor will be happy to advise.

Please note the above guidance applies to students whose home department is Philosophy (excl. PPE/PPL/EPP) only. If you are a student from another department wishing to defer a Philosophy examination or assessment, you should contact your home department for guidance in the first instance.

Missed Examinations

If you cannot attend an examination for medical reasons or due to other exceptional circumstances, please let us know as soon as possible - the best way to do this is by contacting PhilosophyOffice at warwick dot ac dot uk, but do let your personal tutor know, too. You should also submit a personal circumstances form on Tabula outlining what happened On the basis of this evidence the Exam Board can then decide:

• In the case of first year students, to allow you to sit the relevant exam(s) in September as a ‘first sit’. What this means is that, even if you then failed the September exam(s), you would get another chance of resitting them ‘without residence’ the next summer. For further details, see here.
• In the case of intermediate year students, to allow you to sit the relevant exams in September.
• In the case of finalists who miss exams for certified medical reasons, there are three possible options, depending, in part, on whether the exams missed contribute more than 30 per cent of the credit towards the final qualification. If this is the case, then students will be eligible for consideration for the award of an Aegrotat qualification. If this isn’t the case, then they will be eligible for consideration for the award of a classified Honours degree. Alternatively, the Board may decide that the candidate should be permitted a further attempt the following Summer term.

Read the full regulations regarding absence for medical reasons from a University examination (Reg. 12) here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/gov/calendar/section2/regulations/absence

Use of Mitigating Circumstances in Degree Classifications

Finalist exam boards can also take account of mitigating circumstances in determining which degree class to award to a student. The University’s examination conventions define a student as falling on a borderline if their average is within two percentage points of a higher degree class. For instance, if your average is between 68 and 69.9, you are on the borderline for a first class degree. For students on such a borderline, there are a range of circumstances under which the Exam Board can award the higher class of degree, which include the existence of evidence that the student was not able to perform to their full potential for a period of time due to medical or other reasons.

Appeals

If you are a final year undergraduate there are certain defined circumstances under which you are entitled to appeal if you have not been awarded a qualification or against the award of a particular degree class. First year and intermediate year undergraduates have the right to appeal only against a decision that they be required to withdraw from their course of study, and then only if they are in possession of relevant evidence which was not available to the Board of Examiners when its decision was reached. The Academic Registrar's Office has further information about student appeals and student complaints.

Further details can be found in Regulations 8 and 12 of the University Regulations (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/gov/calendar/section2/regulations/ )

and the Examinations Office website at http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/aro/dar/quality/categories/examinations/policies/u_mitigatingcircumstances/