Teachers at an Oxford boys' school have complained to the Government after an examination board lost 30 exam scripts.

The Master of Magdalen College School, Cowley Place, Oxford, has written to Education Secretary Estelle Morris over the conduct of the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA exam board. Andrew Halls has accused the board of losing work completed by students last summer.

The mistake came to light when teachers asked for scripts completed by candidates at the school to be returned for scrutiny.

Of the 106 papers requested by the school, 30 were missing.

The school's Usher, Richard Cairns, said: "The school has been very patient, hoping that OCR would uncover the lost scripts and act swiftly to re-mark those papers we have queried."

The board has apologised to the school.

The complaints follow criticisms of OCR and the Assessments and Qualifications Alliance exam board, for mistakes made marking the paper of a student at Peers School, Littlemore, Oxford.

Joe Swarbrick, 19, missed out on a place at Cambridge University because of the errors, which took almost eight weeks to correct.

Magdalen College School is one of the highest achieving schools in Oxfordshire, and is consistently among the top twenty boys schools in Britain. Last year 75 per cent of GCSE candidates passed with grades A and A*, and 80 per cent of A Level candidates achieved A or B grades.

Past pupils at the £700-a year private school include Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes and composer Ivor Novello.