Students > Student administration > Forms, letters and documents > Special consideration > Reasons and documentation

Reasons and documentation

Special Consideration is one of several possible adjustments to assessments available at La Trobe University. It is specifically intended to support students who experience serious short-term, adverse, and unforeseen circumstances that substantially affect their ability to complete an assessment task to the best of their potential.

Documentation

Supporting documentation must be provided and must be official and verifiable.

Documentation must indicate the date of the adverse event and the duration/dates of impact.

Documents in languages other than English must be translated by a NAATI-accredited translator or a La Trobe University staff member.

Examples of acceptable grounds for special consideration and documentation include:

Category	Circumstance	Required supporting documentation
Serious illness or injury	emergency surgery conditions requiring hospital treatment broken limb impacting on the ability to undertake assessment task	La Trobe Medical Impact Statement. A medical certificate will not suffice and your application will be delayed if additional documentation needs to be provided carer’s certificate hospital admission/discharge summary
Serious illness or injury – students registered with Accessibility and Inclusion	if you have a Learning Access Plan (LAP) you may apply for Special Consideration where there is an exacerbation of your condition that is affecting your ability to complete specific assessment tasks	your current Learning Access Plan (LAP) and a personal statement that explains how the exacerbation of your condition impacted the completion of an assessment task
Emotional disturbance	death of a close family member family or relationship breakdown personal or family hardship as a result of a natural disaster sudden loss of income or employment abuse (e.g. incident of domestic violence, flight from an abusive situation) emergency travel as a result of major political upheaval in your home country traumatic experience (e.g. witnessing or being involved in a serious accident, witnessing or being a victim of a serious crime	obituary, funeral notice (documentation such as birth or marriage certificate or a statutory declaration to confirm family relationship) death or funeral notice as advertised in newspaper/internet/funeral director’s website Community Letter letter from employer or notice of unexpected cessation of employment police or incident report La Trobe Medical Impact Statement from your treating psychologist or counsellor. A certificate will not suffice, and your application will be delayed if additional documentation needs to be provided
Misadventure	transport breakdown causing the student to miss or to be significantly late for an examination or other assessment task power or internet outage	police or incident report insurance incident claim written confirmation of the outage and duration that includes your listed street address in student online. Eg. text message received regarding the outage from your power or internet provider
COVID-19	you have tested positive for COVID-19 and are either required to isolate or are hospitalised	confirmation of test results from the Department of Health e.g. text message/email notification received when you reported your positive RAT result or notification of your positive PCR result other medical documentation such as a Medical Impact Statement demonstrating the impact on your ability to undertake, prepare for and/or complete an assessment task or a written letter from doctor or hospital, as appropriate, advising the impact
COVID-19	you are caring for someone who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 or you are required to isolate due to being a close contact	written evidence from the Department of Health verifying the diagnosis and evidence of a relationship or residential address. e.g. text message/email notification received when you reported your positive RAT result or notification of your positive PCR result

As always, where there are special circumstances these will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

If you are having difficulties around placements, contact your placements office in the first instance who will be able to assist you.

If you are having difficulties with your studies or don’t think that you can submit your assessment task by the due date, chat to your subject coordinator in the first instance. They are here to help you and understand that this is a challenging time for us all.

The University's FAQs on the COVID-19 situation are updated regularly, please visit the FAQ webpage for the latest information.

Foreseeable circumstances are not handled via special consideration. For example:

known medical circumstances such as pregnancy (unless there are complications), elective surgery, long-term medical conditions
armed services duty
jury duty/court appearance
emergency services employee or volunteer duty
religious or cultural obligations
artistic or sporting commitments
exam clash with an exam at another institution
disability or ongoing medical conditions. If you are registered with AccessAbility and Inclusion for support due to an ongoing condition, any adjustments will be managed via your Learning Access Plan. However, you may apply for Special Consideration where an exacerbation of your condition affects your ability to complete any assessment task.

Read about alternative arrangements for the above circumstances.

Privacy statement

La Trobe University respects the privacy of your personal information. We collect personal information in order to assess your eligibility for special consideration. Documentation that you provide as part of a special consideration application is strictly confidential and is subject to the protections of relevant privacy laws. Your confidential information is only made available to authorised staff as part of the special consideration process. You may have the right to access the personal information that we hold about you subject to any exemptions in relevant laws, by contacting us at special-consideration@latrobe.edu.au.