An A-level student has been disqualified from an exam and barred from taking any more for four years after selling papers to fellow sixth-formers, a board disclosed this week.
The student, who was not named, was one of 28 candidates at the centre of an investigation by Edexcel over the theft of papers from the independent Harrow Park tutorial college in north London.
Twenty-five students under investigation have been given no marks for either modules or whole papers. Harrow Park has also been barred by Edexcel and the AQA board from hosting their exams in the future.
Some of the students were caught after an A-level chemistry paper, which had been offered for sale, was switched by the board at the 11th-hour. Some students submitted answers to questions on the stolen paper, not its replacement, Edexcel said.
The penalties are subject to appeal. Edexcel said the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, and universities to which the students had applied, had been informed. Twenty-four A-level, AS and GCSE papers, from Edexcel, AQA and a third board, OCR, were stolen from a locked store at the school in July.
The Metropolitan Police said it was investigating the papers’ theft but that no arrests had been made.