State High students weren’t the first to learn wrong history exam topic

Revelations that students at a top Queensland high school had been learning the wrong topic for their year 12 ancient history exams came after the same issue emerged at another Brisbane school, with the department warned two months ago.

And Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek has now revealed at least eight Queensland schools taught the incorrect ancient history topic.

This masthead was first to report on Tuesday that Brisbane State High had been incorrectly teaching two classes of ancient history students a unit on the emperor Augustus instead of Julius Caesar.

It can now be revealed a parent flagged the issue with the education department in August, after the incorrect topic was taught for a few weeks before being discovered at Rochedale State High School.

Despite the earlier warning to the department, students at Brisbane State High School did not realise they were also learning the wrong content until just two days before they were due to sit their external exam on Wednesday.

The State High students have been offered a resource on Julius Caesar and access to teachers and a classroom to cram for two days. But other exams were also held this week, including the English test on Tuesday morning.

Augustus was picked by the QCAA as the topic for its ancient history syllabus external assessment in 2024, but this changed to Julius Caesar in 2025.

A parent told this masthead that the same mistake was made at Rochedale, with students learning about Augustus for several weeks before switching to Julius Caesar.

“The students felt like they wasted several weeks learning the wrong material,” he said.

Unhappy with the school’s response to the error, and complaining about a lack of transparency, communication and efforts to catch-up students, the parent emailed the Metropolitan South region’s director in August.

The department’s Metropolitan South region education services acting director replied in mid-October, encouraging the parent to discuss the concerns further with the school principal.

The parent said he was shocked to find out this week the mistake had happened again.

“It is concerning that after this error at Rochedale was reported that there was no attempt to ensure that all other schools were teaching the correct subject,” he said.

“That’s a failure at some level within Education Queensland, surely.”

Brisbane State High and Rochedale State High are both part of the Metropolitan South region.

Langbroek described the debacle as “pretty unforgivable”. He said the QCAA was checking with the 172 schools offering ancient history, and found eight schools had taught the incorrect topic.

“They advise me that the topic for ancient history is advised more than 12 months in advance,” he told 4BC Drive.

“We clearly need to have them advised something about their communication to make sure it doesn’t happen. It’s not happened in any other subject though.”

On Tuesday morning, a QCAA spokesman told this masthead: “There are no other instances.”

But by Tuesday afternoon, the QCAA became aware that eight schools had taught the old 2024 topic, Augustus, instead of Caesar.

“We are now proactively checking with all 172 schools to confirm the number is not higher,” QCAA acting chief executive officer Claude Jones said.

“Schools are notified of the topic for the ancient history external exam more than 12 months in advance.

“This is done through memos, syllabus resources, e-newsletters and at webinars and face-to-face workshops for heads of department and subject teachers.”

All the schools involved are submitting an illness and misadventure application so special consideration can be applied when their students’ results are finalised.

Jones said the QCAA would implement measures to stop it happening again, such as making the exam topic more prominent on the website, listing it in the exam timetable published in May and seeking confirmation schools were teaching the correct topic.

Langbroek said he stressed a decade ago that he did not want the ATAR to be a “high stakes” test.

“If we were having a 100 per cent test tomorrow in ancient history, and you thought that you only had two days to prepare, you’d be feeling pretty stressed and freaked out about it,” he said.

“So thankfully, this is a 25 per cent test, because they’ve already done 75 per cent, and we can easily scale that up towards 100 per cent by adjusting according to how they’ve performed so far.”

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