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► Notification of Exceptional Circumstances

If you feel your performance in an examination or assignment has been affected by factors beyond your control, then the Academic Appeals Policy and Academic Appeals Process may apply to you.

What is a Notification of Exceptional Circumstances (NEC)?

There are three stages involved in the current policy: Notification of Exceptional Circumstances (please note: before 1st January 2011 this was known as Special Situations), Request for Reconsideration, and Appeal.

You may complete a Notification of Exceptional Circumstances (NEC) Form within 5 working days of your assessment deadline. Where you have been unable to meet this deadline and can evidence your situation, it is in your interest to complete this form.

How to submit an NEC form:

There are three grounds for representation when submitting a Notification of Exceptional Circumstances. They are:

• There has been a mistake or irregularity in the conduct of the examination or assessment, which may have affected the outcome.
• There has been a material administrative error.
• A student’s performance in the assessment was adversely affected by illness or other ‘personal’ circumstances beyond his/her reasonable control.

The University does not normally take into consideration factors such as “oversleeping, financial problems, holidays, computing difficulties, and availability of learning resources”. However, if this is as a result of your personal circumstances, please contact Student Advice.

You will be expected to provide third party (preferably not a relative or friend) written evidence to accompany your representation. Examples of acceptable evidence are: GP’s letter/report, Counsellor’s letter, Crime Reference number or Police report, etc. Letters from parents/relatives may be acceptable but if you can include some official documentation to support your representation, it may prove more effective.

You will need to fill in an NEC form, located in Appendix 1 of the Academic Appeals Process (this is available from Student Advice, your School, or it can be printed off the NTU website here). You will need to substantiate the ground of appeal that you choose by providing evidence.

Please also provide a supporting statement and original evidence on separate sheets, and ask the NEC panel and the Board of Examiners to take them into consideration. You may also state the outcome that you want to achieve.

If you cannot get hold of the evidence by the NEC submission deadline, then mention this in your statement. State what the evidence is and when it will be available. When you get it, make sure you submit it as soon as possible and keep copies.

The form and the attached documents should be submitted to your School subject Administrator. Hand deliver (and get a receipt) or send by registered post to Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham, NG1 4BU. This will help you prove that it was submitted by the deadline.

If at any point you are not clear what action you should be taking, get advice from the Student Advice Centre.

What happens next?

The NEC Panel will look at the representation made to it, and decide if they think it is substantiated or not. If it is accepted they then submit a report to the Board of Examiners. The Board of Examiners will consider this when looking at your performance.

You await the outcome…

If you have already received your marks and didn’t put in an NEC form, or you did, but are not satisfied with the outcome, then the next stage is to submit a Request for Reconsideration. See more on the Request for Reconsideration page.

Contact the Student Advice Centre

The Student Advice Centre can give feedback and support at all stages of the process. Email us on sac@su.ntu.ac.uk or ring us on 0115 848 6200. More details of our locations and opening times are here.