Xavier College embroiled in cheating scandal over recycled 2016 exam paper

One of Melbourne’s most exclusive schools is at the centre of a cheating scandal after teachers recycled an old exam paper.

A recycled 2016 exam paper is at the centre of cheating allegations at one of Melbourne’s

most exclusive schools.

Xavier College specialist maths teachers have been accused of reusing a six-year-old paper

SAC — complete with answers — as a 2022 final exam paper.

The paper was available to students online until late 2021 and students were surprised to find it was reused as the third 2022 school assessed coursework (SAC) exam.

At least three students, and as many as 20, are believed to have legally obtained the paper from the school’s online portal last year.

The paper is no longer available although papers from 2018 are still available on the portal to students with an active login.

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The 2016 specialist maths exam was available online last year.

No students are believed to have come forward to disclose whether they had seen the paper before.

No students are believed to have come forward after the SAC was run to disclose they had previously seen the paper, and the school is not believed to have taken this into consideration when assessing and ranking students.

Parents say this means the year 12 results are skewed, with those accessing the exam given an unfair advantage.

“The paper and the answers were on the portal last year and a number of students downloaded it. It is Xavier’s fault that they recycled the paper for SAC 3 in specialist maths,” one parent said.

“So not only had a number of kids seen the paper but also had the answers. This is not what you expect from a school which prides itself on integrity, honesty and doing the right thing,” the parent said.

Parents are also concerned the recycling of the paper has had an impact on specialist maths ATARs used to determine university entrance scores.

“Specialist maths has such a significant scaling factor so even a few percentage points uplift in a student’s raw study score can increase a student’s ATAR by a significant amount. This could have the effect of a student taking the offer at university from someone who didn’t have this unfair advantage,” another parent said.

The revelation comes as university offers are being released based on year 12 VCE academic

grades.

Xavier College had two students who received the perfect ATAR score of 99.95. Ten students received perfect 50 study scores and one third of students received study scores in the top ten of the state.

The school has been contacted for comment.