PEC Submission: Frequently Asked Questions

A PEC request can be submitted to your School to advise them if you are experiencing difficult personal circumstances that you believe may be adversely affecting your ability to study and/or to complete any assessments.

In order to be considered under the PEC Policy and Procedure, your difficult circumstances must meet all of the following criteria:

• They are unavoidable (in other words, you could not have reasonably prevented them from occurring – for example, through better time management);
• They are unforeseen (you didn’t know that they were going to happen – for example, a planned house move would not be classed as ‘unforeseen’);
• They are having a negative impact on your ability to prepare for or complete your assessments;
• The timing of the circumstances is relevant to your assessments (the difficulties are happening/happened at the same time as, or while you were preparing for your assessments; or you are able to demonstrate that difficult circumstances you have experienced prior to your assessment period are still having a significant effect on you).

The request will be considered by your School and they will decide whether an appropriate adjustment can be made to your assessments to mitigate against your individual circumstances.

 Possible adjustments will vary depending on the time of year, but could include:

• An extension to a submission;
• An exemption from doing a minor element of work;
• A deferral of an assessment to another time;
• Permission to set aside attempts of an assessment or period of tuition (this means that you may retake an assessment or Stage/semester as a first attempt);
• Permission to retake a module or semester or stage as if for the first time.

If none of these adjustments are appropriate, it may be decided that your circumstances are forwarded to be considered for discretion by the Board of Examiners at the end of the year. This means that the Board  of Examiners may; allow you to pass a Stage despite having failed a module; or allow you to pass a module by discretion; or alter your degree classification, if appropriate.

You should be aware that some adjustments may have additional implications that you will need to consider. For example, if you are repeating any period of tuition (for example, repeating a module, Semester or Stage), you will usually be required to pay the appropriate tuition fees to do so.

Please see the Definitions of adjustments document on the PEC website for an explanation of the various adjustments available.

If you are requesting or have been offered a deferral, it is also important to note the additional considerations regarding implications for programme progression/award outlined below in ‘What are the consequences of submitting a PEC?’.

A PEC can be submitted if you are experiencing any significant personal and extenuating circumstances that are having an impact on your ability to study or your performance in    your assessments/examinations.

The circumstances you are reporting in your PEC should generally be unavoidable and unforeseen and be having a demonstrable negative effect on your studies or ability to complete assessments.

Your PEC request should be submitted prior to the submission or assessment deadline where possible and will only  be considered retrospectively in specific circumstances. If the adjustment you are requesting is an extension, you should submit your PEC form before the advertised submission date. Your School will normally write to you to give you a final opportunity to submit a PEC before the Board of Examiners meets to consider your marks.

PECs submitted after the Boards of Examiners have met to confirm your marks are not normally accepted.

PECs may be considered for any circumstances you are experiencing that you believe may be having a significant impact on your ability to study for or complete your assessments. However, you will need to be able to demonstrate that your circumstances meet the criteria set out above in ‘What is a PEC?’.

Where available, you will need to provide independent documentation relating to your difficult personal circumstances. Where this is not possible, you will need to write and submit a supporting statement which outlines what your difficulties are and how they have been affecting you. See ‘What if I can’t obtain independent documentation?’ below.

Although you will not be academically disadvantaged for submitting a PEC request, it is important to note that there may be inadvertent consequences to accepting adjustments to your assessments.

Deferrals

A deferral is normally only appropriate if you are unable to attend a scheduled examination, or if an extension of up to two weeks for the submission of an assignment isn’t appropriate. In cases such as this, you can submit a PEC to request (or be offered) for your assessment to be deferred. This would usually be to the next normal occasion (the Summer/August assessment period), or to a later normal occasion (the assessment period at the end of the relevant Semester), unless you are given a specific alternative submission date or deadline by your School.

It is important to note that if you defer an examination or assignment to the August assessment period and you subsequently fail the assessment, you will not normally be able to progress and register onto the next stage of your programme and/or be awarded your degree until you have met the relevant requirements for your programme. So, for example, if you were scheduled to sit an examination in May as a first attempt, but chose to defer this attempt until the August re-sit period and subsequently failed your exam, you wouldn’t be able to take your re-sit until the next examination period (which could be January or May of the following year). This would mean that you wouldn’t be able to register for the next stage of your programme as planned and would need to take an interruption of studies until you had re-sat and passed your assessment, and had been allowed to progress by the end of year Board of Examiners.

If you are requesting, or have been offered, a deferral of an assessment, module or stage, there may be financial implications you will need to consider. You may find it helpful to speak to the Student Health and Wellbeing Service’s Financial Support team, who can help you understand if you will be required to pay any additional tuition fees.

Deadline extensions

You may request, or be offered, an extension to an assessment deadline as a result of your PEC request. However, it is important to note that there may be consequences of accepting a deadline extension in terms of the timings of other assessments. While you will not be penalised for requesting or accepting a deadline extension, you should carefully consider whether you can accommodate the additional workload associated with your deferral, especially if the new deadline you have been given coincides with other assessments.

Repeat Modules, Semesters or Stages

You may be offered the opportunity to retake a module, semester or stage as a first attempt as a result of your PEC request. It is important to note that if you are an international student, you may not automatically have the relevant visa permissions to be able to undertake repeat study. You are advised to contact the Visa Team for advice as soon as possible by emailing visa@newcastle.ac.uk.

Any difficult circumstances you experience may have the potential to be a PEC if they have an adverse impact on your ability to study, but you will need to demonstrate that they meet all of the criteria set out above in ‘What is a PEC?’

However, PECs are not normally accepted for instances where appropriate adjustments have already been made to your assessment (for example, if you have already had an extension, or if the circumstances you report have already been considered as part of an agreed Student Support Plan).

Students are asked to report their difficult personal circumstances to their Academic Unit as close as possible to the time at which the circumstances arose. Retrospective reporting of PECs is not normally accepted.

PECs are only used for students registered on taught programmes. If you are a postgraduate research student, you should inform your Academic Unit of any difficult personal circumstances and request changes to your programme of study via the PGR Change of Circumstances process.

On up to two occasions per academic year, you can submit a PEC to request a short extension to an assignment deadline without having to provide independent documentation relating to your illness or circumstances. This is known as a ‘self-cert’ and will be accepted on trust without the need to provide additional documentation (such as a personal statement or medical evidence).

Each submitted PEC form is counted as one request and each individual assessment will need its own self-cert. You cannot submit a self-cert to cover multiple assessments.

If you have already submitted two self-cert requests throughout the academic year and require further adjustments, you will need to submit a full PEC request with accompanying documentation and your request will be considered by your Academic Unit.

Self-certs can only result in an adjustment extension of up to 7 days for an assignment submission.  

We understand that sometimes personal difficulties can continue for longer than you first anticipated, or other problems may arise during your period of self-certification. Although self-certs can only ever result in an extension of up to a maximum of 7 days, it may be appropriate for you to submit a full PEC request for further adjustments if your difficult personal circumstances continue to have an adverse impact on your ability to study, submit assessments, or sit your exams beyond your self-cert period.

If this happens, we would encourage you to speak to your School Wellbeing Advisor, personal tutor, senior tutor or degree programme director as soon as possible to discuss options and support available to you.

All PEC forms must be submitted to your School, via the Student Portal. 

You should submit your form as close as possible to the time that the problem arose and, wherever possible, in advance of assessment deadlines

We ask that you complete your PEC form fully and provide clear details of the issues you have faced, including the dates that you were impacted and how long the problem(s) lasted. This is important to enable us to assess your case.

PEC requests should include details of precisely how your work was affected (for example, if you did   not have time to revise, you missed laboratory hours, etc.). You should also specify which assessments/examinations you believe may have been adversely impacted.

You should provide supporting documentation alongside your PEC form, which should be clearly marked with your name and student number. Supporting documentation can include medical notes, tutor reports, SSPs, statement of support from a Student Health and Wellbeing Advisor or any other documents, but must be relevant to your PEC submission and should detail all the important points you would like to be considered. Documentation should not be created after the event (for example by asking a doctor to provide a retrospective note). You should avoid providing details relating to another person’s personal data in your submission unless you are able to provide their consent to share their data along with your PEC request.

In the PEC form you will be asked to suggest what adjustment you feel would be appropriate to your circumstances. Please note that your suggestion will be considered but the PEC Committee will make the final decision (for example, you may be given a shorter extension than requested).

If your PEC relates to the death of a close family member, the University understands that it can be difficult to assess and articulate the impact on your studies. It may be helpful in such situations if you can provide as much information as possible alongside your PEC form, such as: your relationship to the deceased; the timing of the death in relation to your assessments; how much study time was lost (for example, for attending the funeral, being with family). It is also helpful if you can provide additional documentation, such as a supporting statement from your personal tutor or relative.

If your PEC request is a self-cert, you don’t need to provide any further documentation alongside it. However, for anything else (including where you have previously had a self-cert but now need a further adjustment for the same assessment), you should provide additional independent documentation if this is available.

If the difficulty you are facing is a medical issue (including mental health difficulties), we would ask that you speak to your GP or other healthcare provider and obtain documentation from them. This would normally be in the form of a “fit note” from your GP, but it could also be a letter from a psychological therapist or other healthcare specialist. This doesn’t mean that you need to be actively receiving treatment or taking any medications, only that you have consulted with a healthcare professional about your difficulties.

If your difficult personal circumstances have arisen because you have recently experienced a bereavement or a member of your close family is seriously ill, we understand that it may be difficult to obtain evidence of your circumstances. In these circumstances, we would not expect you to provide death certificates or medical notes relating to another person, but would instead ask that you speak to your personal tutor, senior tutor or degree programme director about your circumstances and ask that they provide a supporting statement for you to submit alongside your PEC.

We understand that there are situations where it is not possible or practical for you to be able to obtain additional documentation. In these circumstances, you may wish to provide a supporting statement from your Personal Tutor, or you may wish to write your own personal statement.

 If you are planning to submit a personal statement alongside your PEC, it may help you to think about the following:

• What difficulties have you been facing/do you continue to face?
• What has been the impact of these difficulties on you?
• How are your circumstances affecting your ability to study or complete assessments?
• When did your difficulties begin? How long did they last? What is the relevance of the timing of the circumstances in relation to your assessments?
• Which assessments do you feel may have been negatively affected by your difficulties?
• What would be your desired outcome for your PEC application? (i.e. extension, resubmission as first attempt, deferral of assessment)

Information you provide within your PEC request and accompanying documentation will be treated as confidential. However, if the circumstances you are reporting are particularly sensitive, you may wish to submit accompanying documentation directly to the PEC Committee and not via your School. In such cases, you should submit your PEC form as normal via the Student Portal and indicate on your form that your case is highly confidential. You should then submit an outline of the confidential circumstances, together with relevant documentation, to your School office in a sealed envelope marked ‘STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL: PEC documentation for the attention of the PEC Committee only.’

If your Student Support Plan (SSP) identifies specific circumstances where an extension or deferral would be appropriate, you are still required to submit a PEC form to indicate to your School that you wish to submit your work with an extended deadline. However, in this situation, you may provide your SSP as supporting documentation and no further additional documentation will be required.

Additional PECs are not normally accepted if you have ongoing medical conditions or disabilities for which you are already receiving adjustments via your SSP, unless there has been a change in your condition, or additional problems have arisen for you.

If you are experiencing additional personal extenuating circumstances unrelated to your ongoing medical condition or disability, or if there has been a change in your circumstances (for example, a worsening of an existing medical condition), you may submit a PEC for consideration of additional adjustments via the route outlined above.

No. If you have a temporary disability that requires a short-term adjustment for an examinationperiod (for example if you have broken your arm and require a scribe or extra time), you shouldcomplete the online Temporary Examination Arrangements Form to request an appropriate adjustment for your examination from the Examinations Office.

PECs relating to COVID-19 are handled in the same way as all other PECs. That is to say, if you are requesting an extension of up to 7 days for an assessment deadline, this can be done via a self-cert and you do not need to provide additional independent documentation relating to your circumstances.

If you are requesting any other adjustment as a result of COVID-related issues, or if you have already submitted two self-certs within the academic year, you will need to submit a full PEC request, as detailed above, and provide additional documentary information relating to your circumstances. Where this documentation is not available, you should submit a personal supporting statement which outlines your circumstances, the impact they are having on you and your ability to complete your assessments, and any contact you have had with your personal tutor or other relevant University employee about this issue.

If, as a result of Industrial Action, you are concerned that you have not received the required teaching or appropriate support relating to your assessments, you are encouraged to speak to your student course representatives in the first instance. However, if you believe that this has had an adverse impact on your performance within your examinations or assessed coursework, you may submit a PEC about your individual circumstances.

You should detail the specific impact the Industrial Action has had on your studies, such as: the dates of missed teaching sessions; which assessment/s you believe have been affected; and whether your Academic Unit took any mitigating action in relation to the missed sessions (for example, by providing additional tuition or teaching materials). You will not be required to provide any additional documentation relating to periods of Industrial Action.

Please note that PEC forms are for individual adjustments only – if an issue or disruption is module- or programme-wide, it will be dealt with within your School and there is no need to submit a PEC to cover this.

We understand that during the current Cost of Living Crisis, you may be experiencing additional financial hardship, responsibilities or anxieties relating to paid employment, which may have a negative impact on your ability to study or complete assessments.

While known employment responsibilities are not usually accepted as PEC grounds, we appreciate that the current Cost of Living Crisis is having a negative effect on many of our students and so there may be times when you need to take on additional paid work in order to meet your financial responsibilities. In these circumstances, you are able to submit a self-cert PEC for an extension of up to 7 days to any assessment (see: ‘What is a self-cert?’, above) without the need to provide any additional evidence of your circumstances.

If you require any adjustments beyond a short extension (of up to 7 days) to the submission date of an assessment, you will need to complete a full PEC request and attach supplementary evidence. In these circumstances, a personal statement outlining your current situation will usually be appropriate. Guidance on writing a personal statement can be found in Appendix 2 of the PEC Procedure.

There is also help and support available to you during the Cost of Living Crisis, and you may find it useful to consult NUSU’s Cost of Living Crisis Hub or access additional support available via the University's Cost of Living Support. 

Transport problems are not normally accepted as grounds for submitting PECs, unless you are able to show that you have allowed adequate time for travel.

While we would always expect students to plan ahead and make alternative travel arrangements where possible, we understand that the current rail strikes may be having a significant adverse effect on students travelling to Newcastle to attend lectures, seminars or assessments. As such, if you feel that you have been significantly impacted by travel disruption as a result of strike action, you may submit a PEC for your School to consider your individual circumstances and whether an adjustment to your assessment is appropriate.

Your PEC should be accompanied by a written statement, which details how your plans were disrupted, any measures you have taken to mitigate against the travel disruption, and the specific assessment/s you feel may have been negatively affected. Where possible, you should also provide copies of travel documents (such as train tickets, e-receipts) to demonstrate that you have attempted to travel despite the disruption you have faced.

As of January 2023, all arrivals into the UK from China will be subject to additional COVID-19 testing. If you are planning to return to the UK from China to resume your studies and/or undertake assessments, and you test positive for COVID-19 either before departure or upon arrival in the UK, please follow the above guidance: “How is the University handling PECs relating to travel disruption?” and “How is the University handling COVID-related PECs?”

If you are an elite athlete, or you represent the University or your country at a high level, and you need an adjustment to an assessment because of a commitment in relation to your field of competition, you may submit a PEC. However, you will normally need to provide a letter of support from the Director of Sport or your Performance Manager as additional independent documentation.

1. Student experiences difficult and unavoidable personal circumstances.
2. Student submits PEC form via the Student Portal, together with additional documentary evidence.
3. Student portal sends PEC form to School to log
4. PEC Committee considers PEC application and decides whether to support the application.
   1. Application supported: An adjustment is made to mitigate against the personal extenuating circumstances.
   2. Application not supported: School informs the student of PEC outcome and their right to appeal.