Nine Queensland high schools taught year 12 students the wrong topic for today’s external ancient history exam, but the education minister says the students will “not be disadvantaged in any way”.
Education minister John-Paul Langbroek said the exam results for the 140 students who learnt about Augustus instead of Julius Caesar would be scaled with the internal assessments they have already completed worth 75 per cent.
“For all of us, as parents or students, who have been through situations like this it would be extremely traumatic,” he said.
“I want to reassure these students and their parents and the teachers affected that we’ll be making every investigation into how this happened.”
“I’m very unhappy about the situation developing as it has for the stress of course for everyone, the communications that have not been carried out appropriately.”
John-Paul Langbroek says nine schools taught the wrong topic for today’s ancient history exam. (ABC News: Nathan O’Brien)
Schools were notified of the external exam topics for ancient history more than two years ago in August 2023 and again in April 2024, the ABC has confirmed.
The information is also available to schools through the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority’s (QCAA) internal portal.
Augustus was the topic for the ancient history exam between 2020 and 2024. The topic changed to Julius Caesar in 2025.
The schools impacted include Brisbane State High School, Flagstone State Community College, Meridan State College, Redcliffe State High School, Yeronga State High School, St Teresa’s Catholic College, West Moreton Anglican College, James Nash State High School and Kuranda District State College.
Mr Langbroek confirmed it did not occur for any other subject because there were no other changes to the syllabus in other subjects.
The QCAA said all of the schools impacted would submit a “misadventure” application so that special consideration could be taken into account.
Mother says daughter’s hard work ‘thrown out the window’
A parent of a Redcliffe State High School student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the ABC that her daughter found out about 1pm on Tuesday she had been learning all of the wrong content, prompting her to make “a frantic phone call” to her mother.
“I spent a considerable amount of time talking to her, trying to calm her down yesterday,” she said on Wednesday morning.
The mother said her daughter panicked because she had been told she needed to work hard for a good ATAR to be accepted into university.
“All of that hard work could have been thrown out of the window for something [the students] had no control over,” she said.
“It was about trying to get her into the right headspace, especially because she has another exam this morning.”
The mother told the ABC the school had been communicative with parents and students about the error and sent students “hundreds” of pages of content about Julius Caesar on Tuesday in an effort to help prepare for the exam.
“She has another exam this morning, but spent all of last night trying to cram hundreds of pages of content that they were sent yesterday about Julius Caesar, the mother said.
“They received effectively four months’ worth of content and were expected to do the best they can within 24 hours.”
She said the biggest concern was the knock-on effects it would have for the students who had another exam this morning, but had spent their time and energy focusing on their ancient history exam instead.
“I am annoyed … these kids started high school through COVID, so to finish off with something big like this is sad for them.
“It’s not a smooth finish to a pretty unsettled high schooling. It’s just amazing it got to this point before somebody realised the kids were learning the wrong content.”
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