Failing deferral due to no fault of my own, what will the university do?

Tagging in @PhoenixFortune who is good with procedural matters.

NB. When you say ‘deferral’, do you mean a deadline extension?

Hey!

To make a long story short, I've spent almost the entirety of this academic year being a carer alongside university for both of my parents who suffered greatly from covid and are still to this day insanely unwell. I'm in my first year, and after failing the initial coursework in May, I was given a deferral after sending off a PEC. Since then, my course leaders and the university in general has shown absolutely 0 compassion towards the external commitments in my life and tl;dr shortened what should have been a month long resit period, which would have been manageable, to just 8 days, meaning I have a super difficult choice.

Either I give up on my parents for these last 8 days and see if I can get someone else to care for them, or I give up on my dreams of graduating university because a few bad apples in higher positions within the university refused to give me a fair shot at completing my deferral.

With the former being my current option, what would the university do if I failed my deferral this year, especially considering the whole pandemic has led to mass confusion and difficulties among students? Do I still get another shot in the form of a referral with the fact that the deferral is technically a second first shot at it?

By deferral I mean I failed during the initial testing period and this is technically the resit, but because I put in a claim for external commitments they gave me a deferral which they say is a second chance at a first submission

Thanks for clarifying. I come from an Admissions background so the term threw me, but that’s my ignorance and certainly not your fault.

Reality Check is also pretty wise with such matters, your question is a bit out of my wheelhouse, but I can certainly vouch for their guidance.

I was never really given anything more than a vague reasoning, being that the university was in a busy period and overwhelmed with oustanding tasks due to the pandemic so was unable to cater for the requirements of every course. I was initially told that we would get the brief for the resits in early august, late july, but what I believe happened is they wanted to see if they could just pass us anyway to save us the hassle especially considering the current ongoing pandemic situation, something that was shut down quite recently. With that in mind I assume they realised that because they could no longer go ahead with the initial plan, they had just fit us in with the remaining time of what the resit period should have been.

I have spoken to my personal tutor but he didn't seem like he had any control over what happened and just had to go with what he was being instructed by the course leaders

I was never really given anything more than a vague reasoning, being that the university was in a busy period and overwhelmed with oustanding tasks due to the pandemic so was unable to cater for the requirements of every course. I was initially told that we would get the brief for the resits in early august, late july, but what I believe happened is they wanted to see if they could just pass us anyway to save us the hassle especially considering the current ongoing pandemic situation, something that was shut down quite recently. With that in mind I assume they realised that because they could no longer go ahead with the initial plan, they had just fit us in with the remaining time of what the resit period should have been.

I have spoken to my personal tutor but he didn't seem like he had any control over what happened and just had to go with what he was being instructed by the course leaders