Exams rewritten after GCSE papers stolen

GCSE exams were drawn up at the last minute after thieves stole papers from a van, one of the country’s biggest exam boards has admitted.

Two Edexcel papers for GCSE Russian and another two for GCSE Arabic were scrapped and replaced with questions from past papers following the vehicle theft.

All examination centres were told the papers had been stolen, and were supplied with new versions, but a number of candidates ended up sitting the “potentially compromised” papers.

Pearson, which owns Edexcel, said it had concluded that none of the original papers were breached. A spokesman said: “We are confident the replacement papers provided a fair and accurate assessment opportunity for all candidates.”