Laniakea : some teacherly advice here. This situation is awful for you. However, bluntly, I am not sure how much sympathy you will get form unis who might point out (or feel without telling you) that they cannot differentiate between those with extenuating circumstances they are told about, and those they know nothing of (my DS and his five different Spanish teachers, none of them qualified, ofr example) and that's why they do apply contextual facotrs (some of them) to schools with poor track records. They might be seen to privilege the more affluent and savvy 'consumers' if they went on case by case basis.
However (and this is the vital bit) there is NO WAY the school should not be acting. If nothing else, their exam classes need protecting because they are such vital performance measures, let alone the individuals involved. so.. in most schools, awful as it sounds , throw years 7-10 to the lions and focus in on years 11 and 13, staffing wise.
Also,they should ABSOLUTELY be contacting the exam board.
Twice, at my schol staff have taught the wrong texts (one for A Level French and one in Eng Lit) and once an exam board messed up . On all these occasions, the students had special consideration applied. the school should be looking into this already, especially as coursework deadlines are very soon.
Are you speaking to the right person at the school? Outsiders often think a Head of SF is the font of all knowledge but often they are not : an exams officer would know more and , in your case, I'd go straight to the head...
