Reporting Special Circumstances
During your studies, you may experience difficulties which could affect your academic performance. Such difficulties are known as 'special circumstances'. Special circumstances could include:
- medical problems, including long-term problems or short spells of illness
- personal problems, e.g. stress, anxiety, or homesickness
- difficult events, e.g. bereavement
- serious incidents, e.g. being affected by crime
It is important that you report any special circumstances to your department as soon as you can. Any special circumstances which you report in advance of the final exam period will be considered by the Departmental Examination Board and may be taken into account when calculating your results and determining your final degree classification. Any information you submit will be treated as confidential and will not be used for any other purpose.
To report special circumstances to your department, please complete a Special Circumstances reporting form and submit it to your personal tutor or Gaynor Hague in the General Office. You can pick up a copy of the form from the Student Services Information Desk (SSiD) in the Students´ Union, the racks outside the Departmental General Office or download one from the SSiD website, at
http://www.shef.ac.uk/ssid/forms/special.html
You will usually need to submit documentary evidence along with the form, e.g. a medical certificate would normally be required for significant illness. Your department will be able to advise you if you are unsure whether to submit additional evidence with your form. Early notification of special circumstances is important to ensure that you can obtain and provide the appropriate supplementary evidence. Evidence will be considered by your department to determine how best to help you.
You will be reminded via email by Student Services and your department of the deadline by which you need to report special circumstances in order for the Examiners to consider them in determining your degree classification. Any special circumstances reported after this date will not normally be considered by the Examiners. There may be circumstances where, for good reason, evidence cannot be submitted by the stated deadline. In such cases, the Examination Board may subsequently consider evidence submitted after the deadline, as part of an academic appeal. Information about academic appeals can be found at