School's textbook exam blunder

Fifty gifted students were disqualified from an exam after teachers mistakenly told them they could take books in with them.

The Year 11 pupils at Kenton School in Newcastle will have to resit their English language and literature AS-levels as a result. The top-set students, who were sitting the exam a year early, were told they could refer to a copy of Anita Shreve's Eden Close during what was actually a closed-book assessment.

After discovering the blunder, the exam board said it had no choice but to disqualify all 50 candidates, who will have to resit in January.