Comedy of errors no joke as pupils get wrong A-level text

English teachers often grumble about how sharper than the serpent's tooth it is to have an ungrateful class. But nine A-level students at a Lancashire public school might be forgiven for withholding their thanks after it emerged that they had been taught the wrong text for their crucial summer exams.

The pupils, who are studying at the £7,750-a-term Rossall school in Fleetwood, had spent the past few months versing themselves in the eye-gouging delights of King Lear, only to discover that the play has been removed from the syllabus.

The "human error" appears to have arisen after a teacher reread the list of examined books last Friday and realised that Shakepeare's tale of a king's attempts to do right by his children was not on it. It later emerged that the exam board, OCR, dropped King Lear in January and replaced it with Measure for Measure.

"We can confirm that nine students in our upper sixth form were given a text to read in error for part of their A-level course work," a school spokesman said. "It was purely down to human error and we have now taken appropriate action to ensure that our students receive the correct text.

"We have apologised to those students involved and to their parents for what was a genuine mistake made by a very experienced teacher."

The pupils are now swotting up on The Rover by the 17th-century playwright and novelist Aphra Behn, who is widely considered to be one of England's first professional female writers. To help pupils catch up before their exams on June 12, the school is giving them two hours of extra tuition a week. The school spokesman said there were five set texts to read during the 33-week A-level course, meaning that students had an average of six and a half weeks to read each text.

"And, as there are seven weeks remaining of the course, the students will still have time to read the correct text and will be given additional tuition to ensure that they are not disadvantaged by what has happened," he said.

But not all the parents found the school's comedy of errors amusing. One mother, who did not wish to be named, said the blunder could threaten her daughter's place at university.

"Error or no error, this is a disgrace," she said. "We pay all this money every term and you don't expect this. I am furious about it. The school has said it will put on extra lessons but I don't know how they are supposed to revise for an exam and read a whole book in seven weeks.

"It is jeopardising my daughter's chance of getting into her chosen university."