Education giant Pearson has apologised after errors in its digital GCSE computer science exam. Pupils sat the second paper of Pearson Edexcel’s on-screen computer science GCSE on Tuesday afternoon. But two of the six questions had errors in them. This centred around different wording between the exam paper and the code students use to write the answer. Pearson has apologised for the disruption caused and said question responses “that show signs of confusion will not be penalised”. Exams officers alerted board In question one, bullet point four in the question paper refered to one line as theTurtle.pendown (_WIDTH), whereas the coding file showed it as theTurtle.pendown (LOCATION). And in question five, the question paper instructed candidates to open the file ColoursErrorLog.txt, while the coding file instead references Colours.txt. Graham Mogridge, associate assistant headteacher of the Swan School in Oxford, said Pearson did not tell all schools about the mistakes in the paper unless the exams officers contacted them directly during the exam. This meant that not all schools knew about the mistakes until after the exams. Those who knew about them had to interrupt the exam to inform students. He said: “It required the exams offices to phone up in both instances. Our exams officer was told to communicate the mistakes to the students but not to apply extra time.” One teacher, who requested to remain anonymous, told Schools Week they had to wait 15 minutes to get through to Pearson’s helpline, then they had to wait again for 20 minutes for a correction to be sent over email. This process happened twice during the two-hour exam. Pearson sent a statement to schools shortly after the exam had finished. In it, Lee Seiler, UK head of assessment, said the exam board was “aware of discrepancies between the question paper and the associated coding files” in two of the questions and apologised for any confusion. It added that the discrepancies “are limited to the wording in the question paper and do not prevent candidates from completing the tasks” and that candidates “were able to answer both questions using the information provided in the coding files”. In a further message to centres sent on Wednesday, Pearson said they were “undertaking a full review of the quality assurance processes applied to the writing of this question paper”, and they would implement “strengthened controls” to prevent it from happening again. They also said “any responses that show signs of confusion will not be penalised” and “senior examiners will review whether candidates have been affected and will issue tailored guidance to examiners accordingly”. Schools can apply for special consideration if they feel their candidates were negatively affected by the disruption, the message added. ‘Really disappointing’ Teachers also complained the exam board did not provide an electronic version of the “programming language subset” – the document that sets out the parts of Python code that students will need to use during the exam. While Pearson said the electronic version of the document was available on its website, the exam files themselves did not include a copy. Mogridge said the errors were “really disappointing, particularly for vulnerable learners” or those aiming for a grade 5 pass. “I hope that they find a way of ensuring that our candidates are fairly treated given the problems.” Pearson told Schools Week: “We sincerely apologise for any disruption or anxiety felt by students as a result of this issue. “We take the quality and accuracy of our examination materials and helpline support very seriously. We clarified the correct wording of the two questions with centres. We want to reassure students and teachers that fairness remains our top priority.” In England, 88,750 pupils sat GCSE computing last year. Ofqual fined Pearson £2 million at the end of last year for serious breaches in three separate exam rule cases.