Student child struggling academically help and advice please?

[Mom2studen]

Just learned today that due to one unsubmitted assignment the uni are failing them for 2nd year. There are extenuating health related circumstances.

Student understandably very distressed and panicking, I'm trying not to.

We've been informed they can appeal and been advised where to get support to do so but I would like to help/advise/support as much as I can but have no idea what to say/advise.

Has anyone else been through similar?

Students immediate reaction was "I give up! I've worked so hard and I miss ONE assignment..."

Though they acknowledge that was indeed their responsibility as I say there were extenuating circumstances.

Trying not to stress myself, not easy!

Help please!

Full disclosure e- I have no experience of university in the UK and no university experience in 30 years.

But this seems weird and ridiculous to me. One assignment? That doesn't sound right so either there's more to this story or the uni has some significant problems.

Why would they let them off with an assignment? If it's credit bearing, where would OP's child get the required number of credits? If there are mitigating circumstances there are procedures to follow - most universities are pretty good with these unless the student makes no attempt to either complete the assignment or communicate why not.

If the student has a personal tutor, they would be a good place to start. The health professional(s) involved with the extenuating medical circumstances should also be able to advise. The uni website should have some pointers for you to follow up?

It does depend on the pass requirements for the course. For some courses (for example, vocational courses like medicine or nursing) you need to submit every single assignment and pass them all to progress. Other courses allow failed/missed assignments as long as the percentage grade is still high enough overall (the pass mark for the year is normally 40%) and some courses will even allow failed courses to be “trailed” into subsequent academic years. All universities will allow resits; the provides two attempts at passing every assignment.
I presume that your DC missed both the original assignment and the resubmission? Depending on the structure of the course that might have dragged their average down low enough to have failed overall-but it’s hard to know without knowing the rules for their exact course. Have they been getting help for their ECs? What does the uni suggest now? Could they resit the year?

Assignments are generally quite major, it’s not like missing a bit of homework. They need to speak to their personal tutor like… yesterday and get a plan in place to catch up.

Yeh sorry but I agree with @Hobbi, student will have known about the assignment for a while surely? They will have had the chance to contact about mit circs (I know a bit about this; unis want you to pass so they will give an extension).

Whywas it not completed? Do they have the chance to retake the year? What kind of course is it?

In the university I work in, when this happens, it's normally because the student hasn't asked for the adjustments for extenuating circumstances in advance of the assignment being due. This would either be because they haven't engaged with support services so their tutors don't know they've got ECs, or because they do have adjustments in place like flexibility with deadlines, but they would still have needed to ask for these before the deadline actually happens. If they can't manage to complete all the work, they can ask for deferred assessments (doing an equivalent assignment later) or they can, if necessary, suspend their studies until their health improves.

We don't normally want to fail students and kick them off the course, so when the procedures haven't been followed, we encourage them to appeal and support them to do so. They might need to show that there were good reasons why they didn't mention the extenuating circumstances at the time (often the kinds of health conditions that stop them from completing work also stop them from asking for help). But the uni would normally be quite keen to get them through on appeal, especially if the student is clearly able to complete their studies with the right support.

Why weren't they offered a resit? It's Ali most unheard of for a student not to be offered a resit if it is only one (or even two) modules they have failed?

I suspect there's more to this OP. Resits would have taken place in the summer. An application for mit circs should have happened - is it too late? Student union usually pretty good with understanding regulations etc. so try there if personal tutor not helpful.

I have confirmed with uni one assignment.

Yes there was a resit, medical circumstances impacted both original submission and resit which student did inform them of - again I have confirmed with uni.

Personal tutor murder to get hold of, communication has been very poorly handled - again uni puts hands up on this too.

Not sure on marks for other assignments but student says good marks which I believe I'll ask for more details.

Uni saying they could repeat year, student isn't sure they want to feeling very stressed and also now being told may not get full funding to repeat a year? Not sure how accurate that is.

often the kinds of health conditions that stop them from completing work also stop them from asking for help

You're right on the money there!

Uni have been really pretty poor with communication generally let alone when problems arise, took me several hours today alone to get a phone call answered! This is also supposedly one of the best unis in country so the lack of decent administration is more than a little disappointing.

Have you read the university's academic appeals policy so you know what grounds they can appeal on and what evidence of extenuating circumstances they will need to provide? I've had a nightmare recently with trying to get students (and their parents) to understand that they can't just write to me to ask me to change an exam board decision: they have to go through a formal process.

Also check whether either the university's student support service or the students' union offers help with completing appeal forms and navigating the process.

But there is nothing for them to do until the student submits their formal appeal in accordance with the uni guidelines. Once they have appealed then it can be looked at.

OP if you post in academic common room you will get constructive advice. warning - it'll be tough love and quite blunt but they know all the policies and procedures. They were massively helpful to me when DS failed a 3rd year module.

I would have a look on institutions policies and procedures, in particular Mitigating Circumstances and Appeals.

If it is too late to apply for mitcircs then I think you should appeal the decision. Also make sure that you get in touch with the welfare team to ensure reasonable support plans/adjustments are in place.

Appeals may your best route. Youmay be able to appeal the module board/progression board decision due to mitigating circumstances that could be made known at the time.

Sorry hit reply too soon and realised you've already been advised of the appeals procedure.

Happy to help if I can , pm me

This happened to a relative. Failed an exam at end of year 2 but was very unwell. Made the case and was allowed to take 2nd year again (in total). Might be worth trying to arrange a meeting to (beg for ) agree this.

OP,

I have sat on a number of Mitigating Circumstances Panels. It’s mostly mental health crises that prevent students from both doing their work and being able to turn in Mitigating Circumstances petitions. Sadly these are all too common; the good news us that universities do treat mental health on par with physical health and want to help students to finish.

It sounds rather serious if this affected both the first and second sttempts at the work. You need to find out what grounds DC has for an appeal and this will vary by university.

Usually the Student Union will help with this. I am not sure what the grounds would be at my place, except that generally we want to help. My own tutees’ appeals have sometimes gone unpredictably.

A good Personal Tutor is a great thing but their loyalty is to DC. If DC is not at risk of harm the PT can’t disclose without DC’s permission. I do agree it would be good if they were available to DC!

My concern is that a crisis long enough to affect both attempts may go underground without really being resolved. If it resurfaces in Y3 — especially if this is Medicine or a similar degree - it could be harder to deal with. Everything will be more manageable if DC regains full health before resuming studies.

Even the need to repeat Y2 under the circs, whilst perhaps seeming harsh, should not cause despair. Student Fianance will make the lian for a term one year longer than the length of the degree.

Sadly, have experience of helping my DC with two successful appeals, also experience from the other side as an academic.

As pps have said, in all cases I know of it has to be student doing the contact not the parent. I also thought there was some learning about dealing with offialdom in there. I wouldn’t expect to be able to speak to anyone by phone, my DC used email and generally got good info . Academics have ridiculous workloads mostly and get to email at odd hours, and at this time of year might well be at an international conference. It was possible to set up a zoom meeting with the personal tutor arranged by email

I researched the regulations, especially grounds for appeal and produced a draft for my DC to edit, because it’s hard to get it started when it’s all so emotionally loaded for them.

Certain aspects seem to have different names in different universities so try to use the names from the relevant uni, eg resit called being referred, and different names for intermitting. Your DC might be able to appeal decision on grounds that their condition meant they weren’t able to ask for mitigating circumstances/extension as pp said. Look for something like ‘Academic regulations on progression’ put that and uni name ac.uk into google. Also as pps said students’ union likely to have good info online and maybe advice line/email address.

If one module, can they ask to be able to complete this while they progress to next year of course. Ask tutor if they think they would be capable of this, you don’t want to set them up to fail. Also ask perhaps for student to be allowed to enroll while decision is being made. It might be late for appealing you will need advice. Have to go to work, will see if I have any more ideas later. Tough times, hope you get some clarity soon

He should be allowed to “retake a failed module” rather than the whole year. But different unis will have different rules I guess. Where I work this is the case.

some universities would allow him to continue into the next year while doing this new module alongside the new year stuff. Others wouldn’t which would mean he’d have one module only to do for a year. Or possibly his uni might make him redo the whole year but seems unlikely if he’s passed the other stuff.

students are entitled to 4 years worth of fees I believe.

his best bet for support is his student support centre/student union. The union is actually a union not just a party organising outfit. They help with appeals, they know the regulations and are there to advise and support. Get him in touch with them as well as good communication with personal tutor.

dd failed a first year module (twice) due to a mental health crisis and non submission. I wrote her appeal for her (I’m an academic so guess knew what to put and asked for a retrospective interruption which they granted, but she hadn’t attended online lectures for 4 months unknown to me in covid). She went on to get a 1st. So there is hope.

My main concern would be: is this an ongoing health issue and if so is she going to be able to cope with the third year right now? If not, could she make arrangements to resit just the failed module this year, and come back into the third year next year? That would give her a year for her health to improve. I don't know whether there's any chance her university would go for that, and I'm also unsure how funding would work, but it might be better than her getting through into the third year now and not being able to complete it.

@Mom2studen

In terms of funding, if they need to retake the entire year, and they haven’t had to repeat a year before, then this counts as the “gift year”; ie SF funds the length of the course + 1 year.

If they have to retake a single module then they would count as a “part time student on a full time course”. This means that for the purposes of maintenance loans/council tax they would count as a full time student but the university would only charge pro rata tuition fees.

If they have to take a year out, and, depending on whether or not the health issues are still ongoing, this might not be such a bad idea, then SF payments would normally stop. However it is possible to apply for Compelling Personal Reasons funding in order to keep receiving payments throughout an intermission; this would normally involve proving potential hardship/showing that it is unreasonable to expect a student to move home-usually due to the fact that they’re receiving treatment at the university location. There may also be an underlying entitlement to benefits, depending on the exact situation. Seek further advice if you think this may be the case as this can get extremely complicated. CPR funding would also cover extra years, in addition to the gift year, if this is needed in the future.

I really hope this is helpful. I know funding can be confusing. In general, in terms of funding, they’re in a good position though.