A KENDAL sixth former who failed an examination because of an administrative error by her school has had her mark reinstated after the school made representations to the examination board.

The Queen Katherine School pupil, who has not been named, made a last-minute decision in May to switch from the A level physics exam to take the AS level instead, which is roughly equivalent to half of the A level.

But the structure of the course meant that the parts of the course which she took in the lower sixth form were inadmissible for the final mark and the examination board decided that the error invalidated the exam and ruled that she had failed.

But, after the Queen Katherine School appealed to the examining body that an administrative error by the school was to blame, the examination board announced this week that it accepted the school's explanation and credited the girls with a grade E pass at Physics AS level.

Austen Robinson, who was acting head at QKS at the time, said "They have accepted that it was a school error and awarded her a grade E pass."

Describing the decision as a "positive outcome" for the girl, he stressed that the situation had arisen because the school had tried to accommodate the girl's wishes at the last minute to help her, and said that lessons had been learned.