Assessments and your personal circumstances
If you are worried your circumstances could affect your assessments, you should tell us as soon as possible, rather than waiting for your results. Read about the Exceptional Circumstances Policy and Procedure below.
Exceptional circumstances
We recognise that unplanned events, including ill health, may occur during your time at BU which could adversely impact your ability to study and complete an assessment.
It’s important that you let us know about any issues you may be experiencing as soon as possible so that we can assist you in finding the right support. Waiting until the end of the year before telling anyone will limit the options available to you.
If you feel that circumstances have impacted you to the point that they could affect your results, you should talk to your Academic Advisor, Programme Leader (PL) or Programme Support Officer (PSO) to see if you may be able to request a coursework extension or have your exam(s) postponed.
If you have completed your coursework or sat your exam before the full impact of your circumstances are known you should also discuss this with your Academic Advisor, Programme Leader (PL) or Programme Support Officer (PSO). If you have a valid reason for not reporting this earlier you may be able to request that your circumstances are considered by the Assessment Board when they are looking at your results. For full information please read the detailed Student Guidance for Exceptional Circumstances.Student Guidance for Exceptional Circumstances.
Extension Request Forms
In response to student feedback about this process, an online extension request form was launched in 2020/21 to simplify the process of requesting an extension - please login to Office 365 first (with your BU student account) and ensure you select the correct link for your faculty:
- Extension Request Form – BU Business School
- Extension Request Form – Faculty of Health and Social Sciences
- Extension Request Form – Faculty of Health and Social Sciences (CPD)
- Extension Request Form – Faculty of Media and Communication
- Extension Request Form – Faculty of Science and Technology
To complete the form, you must also be logged into your own BU Office 365 account, not your personal Outlook or Hotmail account. If you are using a shared computer, you must ensure that you have logged in to BU Office 365 and that previous users have been logged out.
If you have any queries, please contact the Programme Support Team for your course.
This form should be used as evidence that a student has notified the programme team of short-term sickness where medical evidence is not available. This is known as the short-term sickness notification procedure.