Wrong GCSE Paper!!!

This is what i assumed too.Higher instead of foundation or the other way round makes way more sense.

Special considerations plus an average of the 2nd and 3rd paper I'd say.

This isn’t simply a case of bad luck, it’s sheer and utter incompetence. I would be livid on DD’s behalf and want a full explanation from the head about what exactly led to this. There should be so many safeguards in place so that this kind of thing can’t possibly happen!
I’d then want an action plan as to how this can be remedied, a clear date for the resit and adequate compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused. I’d also want the exam board to be aware of what a shitshow the school have made of all this. How can they be trusted to get further papers right?

I suspect that there had been many procedure failures that has led to this. Possibly 3 of 4 different checks that haven't been completed.

What a shame. maths GCSE let's be honest is one of the most important GCSEs to pass, so for it to be this subject is just an absolute disaster, and will screw up these students whole GCSE experience.

@TheOnlyMrsW This happened at my school when I sat my A-levels about 6 years ago.

The exam board prints a different/reserve paper for every exam in case one is leaked or stolen etc. We sat the alternative paper. That might be what happens to your DD.

Because some students will have extra time, or other access arrangements for ALN, SurpriseSurprise. It's very usual.

@SurpriseSurprise they often have a few kids in a different room because they have a reader or extra time or something. That's normal.

How come there were some students in a different room anyway? Seems such a massive mess up

This - it's a horrible time of day. Plus factor in a national invigilator shortage this year.

Ahhhh RTFT now.

Yes - good point regards the board not bring necessarily read out.

Bloody Nora, this is my worst nightmare right now. What a massive ball to drop.

Hope they get it sorted soon OP XX

This. I'm anal about reading out virtually the entire front cover so even if the board wasn't mentioned the title of the paper would be different

Exams officer/invigilator here fairly new to role but ...

It seems highly unlikely a school would have x 2 different boards for the same tier or that this would have got past the exams officer and lead invigilator first thing. Paper outer packaging can't be opened until 1 hour before start time but there is a window in the envelope to allow a check (called "second pair of eyes") to stop something like this happening.

That said if it's happened As stated by a pp I'd agree thus feels like something you'd apply for special consideration for and. Imagine all involved will be moving heaven and earth to sort this.

But yes I can imagine she's stressing, poor kid. I'm so proud of how well our lot are doing so far, they've all got their heads down and cracked on after a spectacularly shit few years, education wise

Surely the way it happened would have been due to the AQA student sitting in the same room as some Edexcel students and there being two envelopes of papers in the room one containing AQA and one containing Edexcel. Maybe one invigilator took out the AQA paper and left the spares on the desk which were picked up by another invigilator giving out papers by mistake.

That is what I thought which is why I wondered if there were differences in the percentage of the topic covered like 50% algebra or whatever. Both my sons love maths. Ds said this was the easiest paper he has ever sat today.

How did maths exams from a completely different exam board end up in a school not taking maths with them?!

All exam boards now follow the same syllabus for maths GCSE, and A-level maths!

I don't know how different they are these days OnTheBenchOfDoom but back in my youth (a long time ago!) there were significant differences. I discovered this when I moved house and went to a new school for A levels and they had done a different O level syllabus. I was shocked my new classmates hadn't covered any calculus and couldn't solve quadratic equations but they were equally surprised that I didn't know what a Venn Diagram was and hadn't done any statistics to speak of.
Of course there was no National Curriculum then, so I expect exam boards had more freedom to set their own syllabi. I would expect more conformity across boards now but I am just guessing.

I'm not convinced on the EO refusing to accept responsibility.

The packets should have been stored in the secure room and only removed in the presence of the EO as 'two pairs of eyes' at all times, whether still sealed or opened. This suggests that EO allowed an invigilator to either enter the secure storage unsupervised or that they were left out and picked up by somebody who had been told 'they're on the desk' or something along those lines, which is also a breach of ICE.

Maths is generally maths (the papers are slightly different in how they approach things) but the main difference this year would be that students have prepared for specific topics based on the advanced info giving out by the exam boards and these will be different for each board. So she might have been expecting to be tested on circle theorems and got a question on histograms instead.

How's Dd holding up, op?

@noblegiraffe related to this but how different are exam boards for maths? Surely maths is maths (I feel like I am quoting The Incredibles 2 movie) Ds sat his today but they use OCR. Is it the breakdown of topics?

The EO should of course have kept the spare AQA papers back to avoid the chance of them being given out in error. However the invigilator should also have checked they were giving out the correct paper. The student would also have been asked in the instructions before the exam to check they had the correct paper. Therefore any 11 parents reading this should remind their kids to check the exam board, subject and that they have the correct tier (ie foundation or higher) before they start.
I feel so sorry for the OPs child and others affected and hope a solution can be found.

There is a national shortage of invigilators and the government were warned that there would be more incidents like this as a result.

Of course the govt did nothing to help.

There are no TAGs. That was a covid thing only.

@Oblomov22 absolutely but i would say as an EO that the period from 8.30-9 is HELL some mornings. If you are a lone EO with 8 different rooms, and a team of invigilators and readers and lsas etc sometimes mistakes do get made.

Also it's possible that the EO is new and doesn't have the experience of many years mess ups like some of us do!

Also, you can train the invigilators over and over but sometimes they don't use their initiative or do what you have trained them to do.

Schools have been told they can’t use mocks, or, presumably, anything else, in the case of a missed exam.
Hopefullu, it will be as simple as taking a final grade from the remaining 2 papers; not sure what would happen if one of those is missed due to, eg illness, now.