A student has told of the moment she realised that her whole school year had been sitting the wrong syllabus for an examination.

As we reported last week, pupils at Castle Rushen High School were shocked to discover the book they’d been reading all year was not on their syllabus.

The 15- and 16-year-olds, completing their English literature IGCSE, had expected to be answering questions based on the book, JB Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, which was on the 2017 syllabus.

Instead, the students were confronted with the Cambridge exam board 2018 questions, which included Inherit the Wind, A View From The Bridge, The Winslow Boy, Henry V and Macbeth.

The pupils had no idea of the error until the moment they turned over their test papers for the exam which is worth 25% of the overall grade for English Literature.

Isle of Man Newspapers’ news team learned of the mistake when we were contacted by an angry father who said his daughter was distressed by what had happened.

He stated his utter bemusement at how the events transpired and how not one teacher, or the head of English had noticed at any point.

One student who took the exam, Alicia Hide of Port Erin, told us: ’We’d been studying An Inspector Calls all year and had no idea anything was wrong until we sitting in the hall.

’About 60 to 65 of us took the exam.

’We went in to the hall at 9.15am and the head of exams didn’t come in as usual telling us to fill in the forms and everything.

’She came in a bit late and said there had been a mix-up and An Inspector Calls wouldn’t be on the exam.

’So we sat there, still under exam conditions with everyone slightly panicked and then we were told to do the exam as best we could, so I did the question on A View From The Bridge.

After the exam, we all came out and the confusion and panic had gone, we were all just really angry.’

She added: ’Either the exam board or the school is entirely at fault.

’I want to go to sixth form and I want to do English literature, but some of us are really concerned that this could happen again and cause a mix up when in our A-levels.’

A mother with children at the school said: ’As a parent, I am upset and annoyed.

’I don’t understand how a teacher can give these pupils the wrong information.

’I feel the children have been let down by the school.

’We were always told to check and double check everything when we were at school, why didn’t the teacher check and double check the curriculum.’

A spokesman for the school said: ’During an English literature IGCSE exam taken by Year 11 students at Castle Rushen High School, it became apparent that students had studied the 2017 rather than the 2018 set-text for this subject.

’The school immediately contacted the exam board and, on its advice, students sat the paper.

’Both the school and the Department of Education, Sport and Culture have contacted the exam board to highlight the issue and to request special consideration for these students.

’This application will need to be considered by the exam board and will take some time to process, as further detail may be required.

’Students who took this examination at Castle Rushen will not be disadvantaged by this when applying for A level or other courses starting in September 2018.

’An immediate investigation is underway and both the department and the school sincerely apologise.’

It has been confirmed that only Castle Rushen was affected by the mistake.

Graham Cregeen, the Minister for Education and MHK for Castletown, Arbory and Malew, told Isle of Man Newspapers that he didn’t wish to elaborate on the statement issued by his department.