Academic appeals

Your Personal Tutor can advise you on the mark verification processes followed in your school and can advise you on who to approach. 

The UPSU advice team (staff and peer advisors) offer advice and support throughout the appeals procedure.

A representative from the Students’ Union can go with you to any interviews, panels and hearings.

Please contact the Advice Service by following this link, or emailing advice@upsu.net;

Your Head of Department has a good understanding of how the assessment boards work. They can advise on procedural matters, including whether you need to approach the Module Assessment Board or the Board of Examiners for your appeal.

If you're an International student, the International Student Advisers can offer advice about visa implications relating to appeals. 

Contact them by following this link, or emailing student-visa@port.ac.uk.

If you are a Degree Apprenticeship student, then the End Point Assessment Organisation may have their own appeals procedure which should  be followed where the decision was made by them. 

The Student Casework team can provide advice on all aspects of the Appeals Procedure. Get in touch at studentcasework@port.ac.uk

All appeals begin at Stage 1, and cannot be submitted until you have received the official communication from the University outlining the decision you wish to appeal against.

For example, if you wish to appeal a Board of Examiners’ decision to exclude you from the course, you will need to refer back to the exclusion letter, which tells you who to contact to appeal. If you wish to appeal the outcome of an Extenuating Circumstances application, you will need to refer back to the letter which confirms your ECF decision, etc.

Regardless of the type of appeal you wish to make, you will have 10 working days from the day you received the correspondence, to submit your appeal to the designated person/team. If you are unsure where to send your appeal, please contact your Head of School.

You should send your appeal by email, including the following information:

• Context of your situation, what decision you wish to appeal and why;
• Your grounds for appealing (as explained above);
• Any supporting evidence you may have;
• Your desired outcome.

The member of staff will have 10 working days from receipt of your appeal to consider it and inform you of the outcome in writing.

If you remain dissatisfied when you receive the Stage 1 response, or you have additional information which you were unable to provide at the first stage (and you were unable to disclose, for a sound and acceptable reason related to the circumstances themselves before submitting the appeal), you can submit a formal appeal.

This appeal needs to be submitted within 10 working days of the date you received the first-stage decision letter.

In order to appeal formally, you will need to have completed the first stage of the appeals process and to have obtained the decision letter which outlines the circumstances reviewed.

At this stage, you will need to complete the Stage 2 Appeal form, which will be sent to the Academic Registry’s Appeals team. Once checked, your appeal will be processed under one of the following processes:

• accepted for formal consideration by a Student Casework Officer;
• rejected because it does not meet the criteria for an appeal;
• referred to the Complaints Officer, if it does not meet the criteria for an appeal, but it meets the criteria for a complaint;
• referred to the End Point Assessment process (in the case of Degree Apprenticeships)

The assigned Student Casework Officer will inform you of the process to be followed and will issue a Decision letter once your appeal has been completed.

Complete Stage 2 Appeal Form

We aim to resolve all appeals at the first two stages of the procedure. 

However, if you consider that your appeal meets one of the following grounds, you may ask for a formal review of the second stage.

The grounds for requesting a review are:

• You do not believe the appeal procedure was followed correctly;
• The investigation was not completed within the normal time period;
• You have new evidence that you were unable to provide, and you were unable to disclose, for a sound and acceptable reason related to the circumstances themselves before the initial decision was made, and at the first two stages of the appeals process;
• You do not believe that the decision reached was reasonable in all of the circumstances.

The appeal needs to be submitted within 10 working days of the date you received the second-stage decision letter.

The Academic Registrar or their delegated person will consider all requests for review. They will inform you of the process to be followed and will issue a Completion of Procedures letter, once the appeals process has been finalised.

Complete Stage 3 Appeal Form

If you feel your appeal has not been properly handled, you can apply to an independent body. The Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) handles individual complaints once a student has exhausted the internal procedures of their university.