‘It’s just insane’: Ringwood school VCE exams disrupted twice after botched science experiments
Year 12 students at a Melbourne school have hit out after being forced to complete crucial VCE exams through blaring fire alarms after crayons caught fire in a science class.
Two bungled science experiments have disrupted crucial VCE exams at an eastern suburban school with students forced to sit the tests through blaring fire alarms.
Year 12 students at Ringwood Secondary College were taking the media exam on Wednesday and the three-hour English exam last month when the high-pitched alerts were triggered.
It is believed crayons caught fire during two science classes on separate days, sparking the emergency responses.
Fire Rescue Victoria said firefighters attended both incidents but deemed them false alarms.
Student Ashley, who completed both exams, said his classmates were told not to evacuate the school on Wednesday.
He said the “distractions were not ideal”.
“This is the exam that I wanted to cook on so bad,” the student said.
“The supervisor was like ‘guys, don’t worry, it’s just a fire drill, we don’t have to evacuate’. It’s just insane.”
Ashley said other students were asked to gather on the school oval.
“The fire drill lasted a good 10 minutes or so — it was so loud because the oval was behind us and kids were coming down,” he said.
“Honestly that impacted me, I could not figure out what codes and conventions I was going to be using (in the media exam) … it’s ridiculous.”
Another student said she was “pissed off”.
“Everyone and their mum were screaming and yelling,” she said.
A Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority spokesman said it had established processes to address events that “significantly interrupt students’ performance immediately before or during” a VCE exam that was outside their control.
“If reasonably possible and practical, minor disruptions will be rectified and remedied at the time of the external assessment by the school,” he said.
The spokesman said in such situations schools should complete an irregularity application.
“Once an irregularity is received, the VCAA will determine whether the circumstances warrant an adjustment to the student’s external assessment result and, if so, the level of adjustment that should be made,” he said.
If an irregularity is found, affected students could be eligible for a derived score.
Despite the bungles, this year’s VCE exams have mostly run smoothly compared to 2024 when 90,000 students were impacted by a bungle in which some test questions inadvertently published on cover sheets released prior to exams.
The majority of students praised the VCAA for the handling of this year’s exams with only minor issues impacting a small handful of year 12s.
The VCAA reassured students last week they would not lose marks after a printing error in the Persian language exam caused confusion over a question.
Meanwhile in the English exam, some students studying the New and Selected Poems Volume One by Mary Oliver criticised the VCAA for including a Section A prompt on a text they were not required to read.
Students also complained about “blank pages” in their maths methods exams throwing them off and contributing to them missing questions, despite this being part of the exam format.
The VCAA reassured if any anomalies were identified throughout the marking process for any exam, it had established processes to ensure no student was disadvantaged in their results.
The final exam for the class of 2025 will be held on Wednesday November 19.
Originally published as ‘It’s just insane’: Ringwood school VCE exams disrupted twice after botched science experiments
