Exam Accommodations

Students should make requests as early as possible in the academic year. To ensure the Assessment, Progression and Graduation Team can set your accommodations for examination purposes the following deadlines are applied:

• Semester 1 assessments and Foundation Scholarship assessment: the last Friday of October annually
• Semester 2 assessments: the last Friday of February annually
• Reassessments: the last Friday of June annually

For exact dates please contact askds@tcd.ie.

Students applying for reasonable accommodation with the Disability Service after these deadline dates will be accommodated in subsequent examinations.

If you have completed registration for your course for this academic year, have applied for reasonable accommodation with the Disability Service requiring additional examination arrangements, and have confirmed your module enrolments with your School or Course Office, your examination timetable details will be included in the my.tcd.ie student portal. Any additional issues should be notified to your College Tutor.

Please note the Disability Service will not be able to confirm any examination arrangements as these are communicated to you directly via the my.tcd.ie student portal.

Further information is available on the Academic Registry website: Examinations and Assessment - Student Guide

Standard disability examination accommodations are listed here and explained below:

Exams Venue codes explainer: 

LV - Low Distraction venue  - A low-distraction venue is provided to a student who finds it particularly difficult to work in a large examination hall. This is a venue with few students. Venues are designed to be quiet and desks face the wall to reduce distraction. The Disability Service can assist is supporting schools with the setting up of such venues with the loan of ear defenders and desk dividers as needed

GV - Group Venue - There is no specific change in the setup of a GV venue. The venue allows students with extra to complete their exam in their allocated time to stop them from being disturbed/distracted by students who would be fishing within the standard finishing time.

IV - Individual venue - The student is allocated a separate room based on the disability requirement such as the use of a voice recognition software, scribe or a specific sensory difficulty advised in the students LENS report. 

The Disability Service (DS) advises Schools and Departments of the need for provision of reasonable accommodations for students who have applied for reasonable accommodation with the DS at the beginning of each academic year. This information is specified in the LENS (Learning Educational Needs Summary) report, which is forwarded to the Academic Liaison Officer on behalf of each student. Each student will also receive an email at the beginning of term from the DS, which may be used in place of a LENS report.

Trinity has approved the following document: Guidelines for students and staff on the modification of examination and assessment arrangements for students with disabilities (PDF).

Students may request one or more stickers for their answer booklets, which refer examiners to inclusive marking guidelines for students with disabilities. The onus is on the students to request sufficient stickers for insertion on the front cover of their examination booklets prior to their submission.

Students should request stickers at the start of their examinations so they may be included on their booklets while they are completing the other required details, and waiting for their exam to commence. Invigilators provide students only with sufficient stickers for their booklets.

Sample stickers:

Trinity Inclusive Marking Guidelines

Even with the provision of additional support in examinations, some students with disabilities may not demonstrate their full potential in an examination. 

Inclusive marking guidelines provide examiners with a framework for marking the scripts of such candidates. The guidelines do not ask examiners to compensate these candidates by giving them additional marks because they have a disability.