School accidentally sends out every single student's A-Level results in email

19 August 2023 , 18:17

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Every A-Level result was accidentally sent out to all students and parents by accident (Image: Jonathan Buckmaster)

A school has been forced to apologise after every single pupil's A-Level results were sent out to all students and parents by mistake.

The 'Outstanding' rated John Taylor High School in Staffordshire was left red-faced after the "human error" blunder earlier this week which revealed people's names, grades and individual marks.

Staff were able to recall the email, but head teacher Katie Cochrane sent a follow up message labelled 'Urgent Year 13 Grade Boundaries' around 40 minutes later where she begged recipients not open the error email and immediately delete it.

One parent whose child goes to the school, but didn't want to be named, called the fiasco a "major concern that an education institution can make such a fundamental error".

The school was left red-faced and having to apologise after the blunder (Jonathan Buckmaster)

They told Mail Online: "The school has ultimately failed to protect their confidentiality in a fundamental way."

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A statement from the school, who were full of apologies, said: "We have immediately reported this breach to the data protection officer and will take any further action as advised by them. We apologise profusely at this time for any upset this may have caused. This was a case of human error, and the school are deeply distressed about the potential upset that could be caused to our students and parents.

"For this we are truly sorry. We have already completed an internal investigation into this with the support of the data protection officer to ascertain the reasons for this mistake. We are aware of these and will put measures in place to ensure that this does not happen again."

Another anonymous parent who saw the email said it included four attachments which detailed the grades from every pupil at the school's sixth form, as well as their names. They said: "No person wants their child walking down the street and have another pupil tell them what marks they got or get derogatory remarks."

John Taylor High School has around 1,600 pupils and later went on to say it received "exceptional" A-Level results, with Mrs Cochrane saying: "We are once again thrilled and incredibly proud of the achievements of our students' this academic year.

"Our students once again have been successful in a range of both academic and vocational courses, which has enabled them to secure University places at a range of establishments as well as higher level apprenticeships."

Sean McPolin