9.00am-9.15am:Students enter the exam hall in St Oliver's Community School in Rathmullan, Drogheda, Co Louth. The exam superintendent collects the morning papers, which are kept in a locked room in the school.
The exam envelopes are colour coded – green for the morning and orange for the afternoon. The superintendent mistakenly collects the green envelope for the morning of June 4th rather than for June 3rd.
9.15am-9.30amThe envelope is opened and papers are distributed face-down. It is only when the students are given the instruction to turn the paper over that the mistake is realised. Paper II has been given instead of Paper I. One of them brings it to the attention of the room. The superintendent allegedly immediately orders students to turn the paper over and push it to the edge of their desks. He quickly gathers them up.
Another supervisor who is monitoring a student with special needs (who was also given the wrong paper) watches the students while the superintendent leaves to fetch the correct paper.
The correct paper is distributed.
9.40am-12.40pmStudents open English paper I and complete the exam, which has been slightly delayed.
12.40pm-1pmThe students leave the exam and meet the rest of their year who have been sitting the exam in other rooms. Word spreads that people have seen paper two.
The atmosphere is giddy as the people who have seen what’s on the paper let it be known what poets are due to come up. Most students, apart from those taking home economics, are finished for the day and go home.
2pm onwardsDiscussions appear on internet forums about a text message that has started doing the rounds.
One early post on boards.ie says: “Yeah so, a friend just sent me a text that he got from a friend or something . . . said person was handed paper two by accident and what’s coming up was passed on, getting to me . . .
“The supposed questions were all pretty much what has been predicted, which at least made me feel good for a few mins before I actually copped that its 99% likely to be rubbish . . .”
Many students are saying that they have received the same text.
The message says that poets Keats, Longley, Bishop and Walcott are on the paper. It also claims that the Macbeth questions are on deception and Banquo and that cultural context came up in the comparative section. The mood is sceptical. Students claiming to be from St Oliver’s confirm that they saw the paper.
3pm-4pmAccording to Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe, concerned parents in a neighbouring school inform their school principal about the leak.
According to this version of events, the principal calls St Oliver’s whose principal in turn calls the State Examinations Commission just before 4pm.
St Oliver’s, in contrast, says it was informed by the parent of a student at its school and that it made contact with the commission on foot of this.
The superintendent is allegedly called out of the home economics exam to speak to the SEC.
4.30pmThe SEC determines that there has been a serious breach of security. There is a contingency paper and the possibility of distributing it securely to every exam centre by the following morning is explored.
5pm-7.30pmWord is out in the media about the leak. It emerges that the SEC is deciding whether or not to hold the exam the following day.
7.30pm-8.40pmThe SEC decides to postpone the exam and works on determining the nearest date on which it can guarantee that all schools will have received the back-up English paper two. Saturday June 6th is agreed upon.
The change of date is formally announced.
A helpline is opened and students who call are told that the paper will not be hugely different to the one distributed in error that morning. Examiners will be instructed to take this exceptional circumstance into account.
