Brigidine College, St Ives: Hundreds of marked HSC Trial exam papers lost by Australia Post

Hundreds of HSC students at a Sydney private school have had their trial exams — and results — lost in the mail. See what it means here.

The HSC has been thrown into disarray for students at a Sydney secondary school after Australia Post lost hundreds of trial exam papers.

Close to 200 students at Brigidine College, St Ives, have been affected after English and Religion essays went missing in the post.

Anxious students from the northern beaches and North Shore, who were relying on the essays to form part of their HSC assessments, fear the missing Trial marks will affect their final results.

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Sections of the Studies of Religion as well as Advanced and Standard English trial exam papers, completed in early August by year 12 and advanced year 11 students, had been sent by the school to two independent “external” markers.

After marking the papers, the independent markers, one in the Southern Highlands and the others in another location outside Sydney, packaged the papers up and posted them back to the Catholic girl’s college.

But the two large parcels, one weighting about 7kgs, never arrived.

And the school has confirmed that the external markers had not kept a written or electronic record of the marks given to individual students.

Australia Post told the school on August 30 that its “efforts to locate these parcels have not been successful”. It has apologised to the school for the “inconvenience this matter has caused the students and families involved”.

School principal Laetitia Richmond has written to parents, reassuring them that the school was

working to minimise the effect the exam disappearances will have on final HSC marks.

Ms Richmond told them that the majority of the religion and English exams had been marked by the school’s our Year 12 teachers.

“It has been our usual practice in the past to have an essay question or extended response marked by an experienced external marker to provide additional, neutral feedback to our students.” she wrote in an email.

This year a question in the Studies of Religion exam and questions about a play by Shakespeare, and the ‘The Crucible’, were sent to the external markers.

“Unfortunately, these papers, coming from two different locations, have now been declared lost by Australia Post,” Ms Richmond told parents.

“The latest correspondence from Australia Post confirmed the items have now been officially deemed missing, despite both having tracking numbers.”

The school said it would provide students with an estimated mark for the missing questions, based on assessments made earlier this year and their Trial exams.

Students will not have to re-sit the missing questions.

“We appreciate that this is a situation where students and parents may feel anxious or concerned that final marks are not a true reflection of the journey in this subject area,” Ms Richmond wrote.

“In reviewing the estimated mark for the missing questions, we are confident that each student’s growth in the subject area has been considered and that their course rank will be an accurate reflection of their standing and ability in these courses of study.

“In each case the missing question represents a small fraction of the trial mark for the subject.”

But a year 12 student said she was worried that “not having any feedback on an important part of my English paper is going to affect my approach to studying for the final exams.”

“Some students are getting three estimated marks for their trial exams, which is really unfair and disregards all the work they have put toward improving.”

Hundreds of HSC students have been impacted after trial exams were lost in the post. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

Australia Post said it had searched through its “Delivery Network” to find the missing parcels. It also searched through its “Returned Mail Centre”database.

“We regret to advise you that despite these inquiries, our efforts to locate these parcels have not been successful and all possible avenues for our investigation have now been exhausted,” it said in an email to the school.

“Australia Post takes responsibility for the error and inconvenience this has caused for all involved.”

An Australia Post spokeswoman said on Thursday that the organisation “takes the delivery of mail and parcels very seriously”.

“We have conducted an extensive search and regrettably we are currently unable to locate these items,” she said. “While the vast majority of items arrive safely, it’s clear that something has gone wrong in this case, and we sincerely apologise.

“This issue been escalated again and further investigations are underway. In recognition of the serious impact of this error, Australia Post is working with the school to remediate this as best we can.

“We will continue our efforts to locate these items and will contact the school immediately should they be found.”

The Education Minister and school principal Laetitia Richmond were contacted for comment.