HSC blunder at Sydney high school leaves students fuming

Students at a high school in Sydney's west are fuming after an error by an exam supervisor saw HSC students unable to plan their answers in the same amount of time permitted to others across the state.

The Year 12 cohort at Wyndham College in Quakers Hill were sitting their English test yesterday when the exam supervisor mistakenly wrote the wrong finish time on a class whiteboard.

The exam was scheduled to run from 9.50am to 11.30am, but the supervisor mistakenly wrote that the exam finished at 12.30pm.

As a result, 46 students believed they had more time than they did to complete their exam.

The supervisors realised their mistake halfway through the exam, and told students to put pens down immediately almost an hour earlier than many expected.

Some students were unable to finish their exams, having mistakenly planned out how much time they could spend on questions due to the listed time on the whiteboard.

"Thirteen years work for this and all down the drain," said Maddison Latham, Year 12 student at the College.

"We thought we had that extra time so we planned out the time that we thought we had to write the exam.

"And then it got cut in half."

Paul Martin, CEO of the NSW Education Standards Authority, said it was a simple case of human error.

"We have strict protocols and we expect that people can follow the advice that we give, but occasionally someone makes a mistake and it is human error," Mr Martin told 9News.

Wyndham College will now apply to be given special consideration to the impacted students. Students will not be allowed to sit the exam again.