Girl's exam horror as school blunders

The error, made by staff at Littlehampton Community School, means she will not be examined on a subject she has spent the last two years studying, a design technology course in product design, because it cannot be taken alongside another of her choices, food technology.

The two subjects are known as a banned combination, which the examining board AQA does not allow to be taken together because they are too similar.

She must now cram in one-to-one tuition sessions to prepare her for the new exam, which is in May.

Sonia, of Hide Gardens, Rustington, had originally opted to take GCSE product design and food technology and was not told at the time the subjects were a banned combination.

She now faces a choice of either sitting an exam in resistant materials or losing a GCSE grade altogether.

She said: "I'm not very happy at all really. I've studied product design for the last two years and then the school turn round and say I can't do it.

"I wanted to take Spanish but the lessons clashed with food technology so I had to choose another subject and I chose product design. The school should have told me then that I couldn't take both subjects."

In fact, the mistake was only realised when the school entered Sonia for the exams.

"I've now got to do extra work in the holidays, which I don't think's fair. I'm now on Easter holiday for two weeks and I have not even been told what work I need to do to get prepared and the exam's on May 26."

Kevin Phillips, principal manager of candidate services at AQA, said the two subjects were banned because they involved similar work.

He said: "It's an unfortunate error that has been made and, as I understand it, the school has apologised."

Headteacher Jayne Wilson said: "The school has made an error and we have apologised for that.

"I don't know how it happened and how she slipped through the net.

"The issue for me now is that we put into place the best alternative for Sonia and that's to do the resistant materials exam, which has a lot of cross-over with the product design course she was taking.

"We will do what we can to ensure that she doesn't lose two years' work."