Academic appeals

University of Nottingham > Student Services > Service Details > Appeals, Complaints and Conduct > Academic appeals

We have good systems and processes to ensure the academic quality of our courses, but if you are unhappy with any part of your course, please initially talk to someone in your school who is directly involved which should hopefully resolve your concern. Following this, you can ask the university to review a formal decision about your assessments, progression or award through the academic appeals process.

What is an academic appeal?

An academic appeal is when you ask the university to review a formal decision about your assessments, progression, or awards.

Which decisions can be appealed?

You can appeal the following decisions made by the university (these might be referred to as rights):

Progression conditions: If the university requires you to take reassessments or meet certain conditions to move to the next stage of your course or research.
Termination of study: If your current program is terminated without offering a lower award or the option to transfer to another course or research degree.
Classification decisions: If you disagree with the classification decision (including class of honours) awarded.
Progression reviews: If you met the progression requirements but couldn’t inform the university of serious circumstances affecting your study before the exam board’s decision. You must show compelling reasons, like evidenced medical incapacity, for not informing the university earlier.
Qualification awards: If the university decides not to award your registered qualification and instead offers a lower or no qualification.
Fitness to Practise: If you are on a professional course and disagree with a decision made by the university’s Fitness to Practise Committee.
Extenuating circumstances: If you disagree with the outcome of an extenuating circumstances claim.

You can appeal more than one of these decisions at a time.

What cannot be appealed?

You cannot appeal the academic judgement of the exam board, including dissatisfaction with a decision. Appeals are not a way to challenge disappointing results.

What reasons can I use to appeal?

You can appeal based on specific circumstances, known as ‘grounds.’ You can choose more than one ground for your appeal. Here are the accepted grounds:

Procedural irregularity: If parts of the documented assessment procedure were not followed.
Prejudice or bias: If there is evidence of prejudice or bias, or if there are reasonable grounds to believe it occurred.
Unreasonable decision: If a decision was made that was not reasonable. You need to provide a strong argument for this; simply disagreeing with the decision is not enough.
New evidence: If your performance was affected by circumstances that were not known and could not have been known to the exam board at the time of their decision. You must explain why these circumstances couldn’t be reported earlier.

If you have a concern about teaching, supervision or anything to do with the delivery of your programme, this should be raised with your school as soon as possible. If you need to, you can raise a complaint about this, which would be addressed through the Student Complaints Code of Practice rather than considered as an academic appeal.

How can I submit an appeal?

Note: This guidance applies to decisions made at our UK campus. Different procedures apply to the University of Nottingham Ningbo China and the University of Nottingham Malaysia.

To submit an appeal, follow these steps:

Complete the form: fill out the form linked on our appeals webpage.

Read the Code of Practice: ensure you have read and understood our Academic Appeals Code of Practice.
State the facts: clearly state the facts of your case and provide relevant evidence.
Submission deadline: appeals must be submitted within 30 working days of the decision. Late submissions are unlikely to be accepted.
Provide evidence: include any evidence you have to support your appeal as well as evidence of what you are appealing, such as the letter or email you received notifying you of the decision.

You'll need to include these details:

Basis for appeal: choose the basis (or right) for your appeal from the provided list.
Reasons for appeal: specify the reasons (or grounds) for your appeal.
Summary: provide a summary (up to 1200 words) explaining your reasons for appealing, including a summary of what has happened. Remember that the reviewer will not have background knowledge of your circumstances. If you can, it's useful to provide a chronological timeline, including how you have sought advice or tried to resolve your issues informally before submitting an appeal.
Desired outcome: let us know your desired outcome.
Submit the form: email the completed form to the academic appeals inbox.

After submission of your appeals form, you'll receive an email acknowledgement from the Investigations and Resolution team.

Tips for submission

Clear evidence: Ensure any evidence you provide is clearly titled and ideally dated. We reserve the right to reject appeals with an excessive number of documents.
Keep it clear and concise: Use clear, succinct responses and stay within the recommended word count. Timelines or bullet points can help structure your appeal. When referring to evidence, use the saved document name you have given it.
Speak to the Students' Union: We strongly recommend you get some advice from the impartial Education Advisers in the Students’ Union prior to submitting your academic appeal.

What evidence can I submit to support my appeal?

We will require formal notification of the decision you are appealing – often this is an outcome letter or email confirming the decision. A Blue Castle screenshot will be accepted if you are appealing a classification decision. You can submit other evidence if it substantiates the grounds under which you are appealing. Evidence should be factual, not just opinions or assertions.

Evidence that is signed, dated from the relevant period (or refers to the circumstances that occurred from that time) and from a professional source can be helpful. Evidence should be provided in English and if that is not possible, a certified translation should be submitted. If you have a support plan and your appeal relates to certain aspects, then please provide full details to assist us in handling your appeal.

Types of evidence which might be relevant include:

Medical letters/GP records relating to your health
Official documents from the Government or other bodies
Emails from academics or support services
Police reports
Link to standards of evidence in the EC policy.

What is the appeal process?

Case studies

Student A took exams in May/June and resits in August, suspecting they had ADHD/ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Over the summer, they were diagnosed with ADHD and received a medical report in August, but only got it after the resits. In September, they were informed they failed some modules and had to retake the year.

Student A appealed the decision, citing extenuating circumstances due to their ADHD diagnosis. They provided the medical report as evidence, explaining that ADHD affected their concentration and exam performance.

The case handler asked about the timing of the diagnosis report, and Student A clarified it was received in mid-September. The appeal was upheld, allowing the student to retake the year as first-sits under the Policy on long-term conditions or disabilities affecting student’s ability to study and complete assessment .

Student B submitted an extenuating circumstances (EC) claim after their results were released, citing anxiety and difficulty concentrating during an exam due to traffic delays. They emailed their personal tutor immediately after the exam to explain but did not submit an EC claim within five days as advised. Their EC claim was not considered because it was out of time.

After failing the exam, the student appealed the decision requiring reassessments, providing the email exchange with their tutor as evidence. The student explained their poor performance was due to anxiety and requested their resit to count as a first-sit.

The appeal was not upheld because they did not submit the EC claim before the exam board met and failed to provide a reason or evidence for this delay.

Student C submitted an extenuating circumstances (EC) claim for a written exam, requesting cancellation of late penalties. The EC panel rejected this because exam submissions over a certain time receive a zero, and late penalties only apply to coursework.

Student C appealed, arguing the EC outcome was unreasonable, providing screenshots showing they submitted the exam 10 minutes late without editing it after the deadline.

The appeal was rejected because regulations do not allow late penalties for exams, and the submission window already included 30 minutes for IT issues.

Service standards

We will acknowledge receipt within five working days of the appeal or appeal review request being submitted. The outcome of an appeal and any appeal review is normally communicated within 90 calendar days. If this is not possible, we will be in touch to provide an explanation and an alternative timescale on when we will respond.

To appeal decisions (including EC decisions) made by Exam Boards which met before 23 September 2024, use the Academic Appeals Policy 2023/24.

To appeal decisions (including EC decisions) made by Exam Boards meeting after 23 September 2024, use the Academic Appeals Code of Practice below.

Academic Appeals Code of Practice

Academic Appeals Policy 2023/24

Academic Appeals Procedure 2023/24

Support with an appeal

If you’re submitting an appeal and need some advice, or you’re awaiting your appeal outcome and would like some help understanding the process, we recommend speaking to Students’ Union Advice who offer a free, impartial service to support you.

Different procedures apply at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China and the University of Nottingham Malaysia.

We also have a guide to completing the appeal form, which includes explanations of the different rights and grounds that apply to appeals, as well as information about the sort of evidence that is often submitted as part of an appeal.

Academic Appeal - guidance on completing the form

Appeals forms

Academic appeal form

Review request form

A-Z of services

Student enquiry centre