If you're not eligible to submit a self-certification claim, you'll need to submit a mitigating circumstances claim supported by evidence.
Do I need to provide evidence?
You must provide evidence if your mitigating circumstances claim matches at least one of the below criteria:
- Your situation affects you for more than five working days. The term ‘working days’ excludes weekends and public holidays. For example, if it is Tuesday today and there are no public holidays this week or next week, the next five working days would be Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday
- You wish to submit the claim more than ten working days before or five working days after of the assessment due date
- You've submitted a self-certification claim twice already this academic year
- You have taken the assessment, but due to the nature of your circumstances you did not realise that you were not fit to take the assessment
When should I submit an evidenced claim?
You should submit an evidenced claim if:
- You only need a short deadline extension for coursework (an 'extension’ which means you can submit the coursework late up to five working days after the assessment due date without penalty). Note that if you've already submitted an evidence or self-certification claim for an extension of up to five working days on an assessment, you can't claim for a further 5-day extension for the same assessment, or
- You need longer than a five working day extension to submit your coursework, and wish to submit your coursework during the next assessment period instead (‘defer assessment task’), or
- You miss, or wish to miss an exam or a scheduled assessment event (such as a presentation or in-class test) and are not eligible to submit a self-certification claim and need to defer your attendance to the next assessment period ('defer assessment task'), or
- You've been unable to attend a whole module and need to defer the module and reattend (including all assessment tasks within that module) to the next academic year
2024/25 deadlines
You must submit evidenced claims by the deadlines below. These deadlines are only for claims that require evidence (see our Self-certification claims page for claims relating to short-term illness or circumstances that do not require evidence).
- Semester 1 – Friday 17 January 2025 (for all Semester 1 assessments and January scheduled exams)
- Semester 2 – Monday 19 May 2025 (for all Semester 2 assessments and exams)
- Referrals/deferrals – Monday 14 July 2025
- Summer School – Friday 8 August 2025 (for all study abroad summer school modules)
LPC claims should be submitted within three days of the date of assessment as required by the professional body.
If you are a student studying Legal Practice within the Westminster Law School please note there are specific MC regulations that apply to you, in particular when you are required to sit deferred examinations, which may not be in line with the normal university deferral periods.
Details are provided in the Course Handbook. Please ensure that you always check the handbook or with the LPC Administration Officer.
Please note in particular that Civil and Criminal Litigation must be taken in the same examination period.
- Deadline for Postgraduate Dissertations/Projects due from the 2023/24 academic year – Friday 13 September 2024
- Deadline for Postgraduate Dissertations/Projects in Semester 1 – Friday 24 January 2025
- Deadline for Postgraduate Dissertations/Projects in Semester 3 – Friday 12 September 2025
Deadline for Postgraduate Life Sciences students deferral/referral assessments – Friday 8 August 2025.
Please refer to the Research Degree Handbook – applications should be made only through the Virtual Research Environment (VRE). If you have any queries, please email [email protected].
What evidence do I need to submit?
It's important that you provide as much evidence and information as possible to support your claim.
Where evidence is not presented in English, it is your responsibility to have it independently translated by an accredited translator, prior to submission.
The following examples of types of evidence are provided for guidance only.
Where the mitigating circumstances relate to the death of someone related to or known to you, the University normally requires a death certificate or an officially certified copy of a death certificate. Other examples of acceptable evidence might include a letter from a bereavement centre or your family doctor, an order of service from the funeral, or an obituary. If the evidence does not make your relationship to the deceased clear, the University will require you to explain this and the impact upon your studies.
Bereavement will normally be considered to cover the assessments within the semester when the death occurred. If you feel you have been affected by a death beyond this you will normally need to provide additional evidence to indicate how the death has affected you personally eg a doctor’s certificate.
If you are seeing a Professional Counsellor, Psychiatrist, Mental Health Clinician, etc for difficulties that have impacted your studies, you may ask them to provide a confidential statement.
The University's Counselling Service will only provide statements for mitigating circumstances claims where you have received support over a period relevant to the claim in question. Letters will not be provided at the first meeting with a University Counsellor or Adviser.
Please note: any letter provided by the University's Counselling Service is not a guarantee that your claim will be accepted.
If you are a part-time or evening student in employment and you are prevented by your employer’s action(s) from attending assessments or completing work by the published deadline, you must provide documentary evidence from your employer to support your claim. Full-time students will not normally be eligible to claim for mitigating circumstances in relation to employment. The University appreciates some students work to finance their studies but expects that students will make their studies a priority. It is a student’s responsibility to evaluate whether they can comply with the requirements of their course before enrolling at the University.
Financial and accommodation problems must be substantiated by documentary evidence. Claims and evidence for financial and accommodation problems are considered on a case-by-case basis.
If you receive a summons for jury service and you are not permitted to be excused or to defer to a later date, you should submit a copy of your jury summons as evidence and any letter rejecting your request to be excused or defer. Further information can be found on our Jury service guidance for students page.
In the case of evidence relating to medical conditions, this must take the form of a medical certificate or doctor’s letter that makes it clear that you were unwell at the time. Images of prescriptions and medication cannot be accepted alone as evidence for a claim. The evidence must state the time and duration of the illness and include a clear medical opinion. A note from the doctor indicating that the student told them they were unwell will not normally be accepted, and self-certification cannot be accepted.
Where an exam or a scheduled assessment (such as an in class test, presentation, or performance) is held on a religious observance date, a claim for mitigating circumstances may be submitted in accordance with these regulations. Except where the Faith and Spirituality team is unable to confirm that the assessment coincides with a day of religious observance, the student will be offered a deferral to the next available opportunity. Students should refer to the Religious Observance Dates and the Religion, Belief and Study Policy.
You may seek a supporting statement from your Personal Tutor (or another suitably qualified member of University staff), in order to help you to articulate your claim, if that individual is aware of the circumstances and their effects. However, this cannot, in itself, constitute independent evidence.
How to submit an evidenced claim
To submit your claim:
- log in to My Student Record
- go to the ‘My Profile’ tab
- in the ‘My Self Service’ box, click on ‘Submit a mitigating circumstances claim’ link
- complete the claim submission process
Provide as much evidence and information as possible to support your claim. Please note you may be required to present your evidence to us for authentication if requested.
You must submit your claim by the relevant mitigating circumstances claim deadline (see above).
Further information
If you require further advice or guidance about the mitigating circumstances process, please speak to the Student Centre or your personal tutor. You can also check our Mitigating circumstances FAQs for answers to further questions about mitigating circumstances claims.
Self-certification claims
To check if you're eligible to submit a self-certification claim, go to our Self-certification claims page.
Find out moreGo to Self-certifications claims page
Mitigating circumstances process
For all the key information about the mitigating circumstances process, go to our Mitigating circumstances claims page.