Pearson - the owner of the Edexcel exam board - haswritten to headteachers expressing “profound regret” over the leakingof twoA-levelpapers.
,Sharon Hague, vice-president of Pearson and the officer responsiblefor Edexcel, says: “I am writing to express my profound regret that exams for two of this year’s A levels, economics and maths, have been overshadowed by concerns about whether or not content from the papers was made available before the exams were sat.”
Exams watchdog Ofqual confirmed to 91 todaythat it is not formally investigating either incident.
In herletter, Ms Hague admitsthat thesituation had resulted in “anxiety for schools, teachers, students and their parents”.
She saysPearson isnow able to disclose more information about the approach it has taken afterreceivingpermission tomention a policeinvestigation.
In the case of the maths exam, the letter statesthat “as a result of intelligence shared with us by students”, Pearson confirmed thatexam papers were being illegally offered for sale on the morning of Friday 23 June. It was too late to replace exams to be sat that day, but Pearsonnotified Ofqual and the police, whobegan an investigation and have madearrests.
Ms Hague saysPearson did not have reason to believe that there had been a widespread breach of the maths papers, and so did not postponesitting of the exam on Monday 26 June. The police enquiries suggested that the problem was “localised”, so the company issued “replacement questions to be sat in the small number of schools and colleges where specific concerns had been raised”.
As a result, Pearson staff visited those centres on Monday morning to help teachers issue the replacement questions.
The letter states thatPearson willundertake “additional statistical analysis” of this year’s maths A level to establish whether there are patterns in the results that are unusual for any centre or student.
‘We’ll ensure fair results’
“No student will be asked to retake a paper and every student should be confident that we will mark and award maths A level and ensure fair marking and fair results,” the letterstates.
“It is regrettable that the fraudulent and criminal actions of a tiny number of people have added to the stress of this year’s exams for a much larger number of students, their parents and teachers,” it adds.
The case of the economics A-level exam taken on 19 June was different and not a criminal matter. Ms Hague saysPearson was “alerted to the fact that there had been a possible breach of content in one school, resulting in some high-level content being posted on social media for a very short time immediately before the start of the exam”.
“This activity contained no precise details about specific questions and we do not believe that any student has gained an advantage from this, although we will monitor trends very closely,” the letter states.
“We have moved quickly to identify the individuals concerned and worked with their schools to identify what had happened. We quickly concluded our investigation and we will be following established disciplinary procedures against those individuals,” Ms Hague adds.
A spokesman for Pearson told 91 that none of its employees had been implicated in relation to either incident.
While Ofqual posted a statement on its website last week stating that it was “working with Pearson to establish the fact” behind the maths leak, a spokesman for the regulator said it was not formally investigating either incident. However, he added that Ofqual continued to be “in dialogue with all interested parties”.
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