“Stay calm, don’t panic” flashed across Ella Crabb’s phone.
The email from her parents — tacked onto an urgent alert from Brisbane State High School — would do anything but keep her calm.
It didn’t take long for news to spread that year 12 students had been taught the wrong topic for their final ancient history exam. For months, they’d been taught about Augustus Caesar, instead of his great uncle Julius.
Little did they know it wasn’t just their school. The next day, a further eight schools across Queensland would realise they’d made the same error, just 24 hours before the big test.
Nine Queensland high schools taught wrong topic for external ancient history exam
Rome wasn’t built in a day — and neither was the school exam crisis now engulfing the state’s curriculum authority.
“I don’t know who made the mistake, whether it was the school or QCAA (the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority),” said Jamie Learmonth, a year 12 student at Brisbane State High School.
“But if it was QCAA, it feels like a crazy big mistake for them to make.”
Ella Crabb immediately thought about the amount of work that felt “now completely invalid” for the exam worth 25 per cent of her final mark.
“For the school to just say, we’re sincerely sorry, it just felt so crazy, and I was angry,” she said.
‘All of a sudden, I had to pivot’
Brisbane State High School was one of nine Queensland schools affected. (ABC News: Michael Lloyd)
Time was of the essence, and schools were left scrambling.
Schools sent out information packs and last-minute study sessions were held to help students prepare as late as the morning before the exam.
“I was just thinking, oh god, I’ve got to get out of [another] exam and just start cramming,” said Brisbane State High School student Ava Georgas.
Investigations widen into Queensland exam bungle
“All of a sudden, I had to pivot, drop all my priorities and just put ancient history at the top which has sort of had a ripple effect on probably all my other subjects.”
The QCAA then rushed to contact all 172 schools which teach the subject to check if they’d made the same error, finding nine had.
As the scale of the problem became clear, one glaring question quickly emerged: how did those nine teach the wrong topic?
The QCAA insisted schools were warned about the change, more than 12 months prior.
Three memos were sent out between August 2023 and earlier this year.
But the number of schools involved in the bungle has only raised more questions about why it wasn’t picked up sooner.
The education minister says the students involved won’t be adversely impacted by the mix-up. (ABC News: Nathan O’Brien)
Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek has since put the curriculum authority on notice, ordering a review of how it communicates changes in exam topics and requesting details about the “processes” that were followed when the curriculum was changed.
He promised students their marks would not suffer.
It’s not the first-time communication has been an issue at exam time.
In 2020 — the first year of the external exams — the QCAA advised schools of a late correction to a question on the mathematical methods exam in a daily bulletin at 6am.
The only problem? Some schools didn’t see the message in time.
The QCAA was then forced to apologise and make sure affected students would not lose marks for that question.
At the time, the authority said measures were put in place to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
Months spent studying ‘for nothing’
As students were expected to walk into the ancient history exam and answer questions they hadn’t prepared for, the authorities responsible for the curriculum and schools alike refused to face the media.
The QCAA did not hold a press conference or agree to interviews.
Students had no idea they were preparing for the wrong ancient history exam. (ABC News: Casey Briggs)
Even as it was revealed one school, Rochedale State High, had realised it was teaching the wrong topic at least two months prior, the education department would not answer questions about why it had not prompted a wider investigation to check if other facilities had made the same mistake.
A parent at the school had complained about the issue to the department’s Metro South Region in August, which also failed to trigger a broader review.
Generation pandemic completed high school the hard way now come exams
Now, it is students left to deal with the consequences.
“They couldn’t change the exam, they couldn’t move the dates back … I personally see that as a bit of an issue,” said Ava.
“I think they prioritise rules over just basic common sense.”
Others like Jamie are frustrated they spent “months studying August for nothing”.
For Yeronga State High School student Ella Sinclair, the perseverance of her teacher helped keep heads above water.
“I feel like if our teacher hadn’t prepared us as much as he did going into the exam about what it was about … we all would have been pretty confused,” she said.
“Obviously, it was quite stressful in the moment, it’s year 12 … we’re in external exams.”
