| Mark / 80 | Indicative grade |
|---|---|
| 64–80 | A* |
| 56–63 | A |
| 48–55 | B |
| 40–47 | C |
| 32–39 | D |
| 24–31 | E |
For eleven years I defended the sensible middle course. Phones away in lessons, phones allowed at break; trust the pupils, teach them balance. I argued for that policy at governors’ meetings and three separate parents’ evenings, and I now believe I was wrong about it every time.
A rule that has to be enforced forty times a day is not a rule. It is a negotiation, and the adults lose it slowly. Last spring my head of Year 10 kept a tally: two hundred and fourteen conversations about phones in a single term. Not one of them was about learning. Every one of them cost a teacher some part of the goodwill she needed for something that mattered.
So in September we bought lockable pouches, and the phones went in at the gate. The first fortnight was miserable. There were appeals, there were parents on the telephone, there was a petition with more signatures than we have pupils. And then, in the third week, the noise came back. I do not mean disturbance. I mean the sound of a hundred and forty children eating lunch together and arguing about nothing: an ordinary, untidy, human roar that had not been heard in that hall for six years. Somebody found a football. The library began lending books faster than we could shelve them. A boy asked me, entirely seriously, what I used to think about when I was bored.
I am told that a total ban is heavy-handed, and that emergencies require a phone. The school office has answered emergencies for a hundred and thirty years and answers them still. Medical exemptions are granted individually and quietly. As for heavy-handedness: half measures were the worst of both worlds. All of the argument, and none of the benefit.
I have visited Fenwick High, and I should say at once that the change Dr Ashworth describes is real. I watched it at lunchtime. I still think she has drawn the wrong lesson from her own success.
The device in a fifteen-year-old’s pocket is not simply a phone. It is the bus pass and the timetable. It is the translation app that lets a pupil who arrived in March follow a chemistry lesson. It is the monitor that tells a diabetic girl what her blood sugar is doing during double maths. Confiscation policies tend to be written as though every device were a slot machine, and then exemptions are bolted on afterwards, one apologetic letter at a time.
More importantly, a ban does not teach self-regulation. It postpones it. A pupil who has never once had to choose between the lesson and the notification will make that choice for the first time, unsupervised, at nineteen — in a lecture theatre, or in an office, where nobody issues pouches. A quiet dining hall is a fine thing. It is not the same thing as a thoughtful one.
There is evidence neither side enjoys quoting. Two schools I studied last year taught phone habits explicitly: timed blocks of work, devices face down in a tray by agreement rather than by confiscation, a short review each Friday of what had been lost to the screen that week. Their gains in sustained attention came within a point or two of Fenwick’s. No pouches. No appeals. No petition. If the benefit can be had without the war, we ought at least to want to know why we are not trying.
Read both texts in the insert, then answer all three parts of Question 1.
One mark for each valid reason, expressed in your own words and explained. A lifted phrase with no explanation scores nothing. Creditable reasons include:
First, he points out that a phone is doing several necessary jobs at once — carrying a bus pass, translating a lesson for a pupil who has just arrived, monitoring a diabetic student’s blood sugar — so a rule aimed at distraction removes those things too. Second, he argues that locking phones away simply delays the difficulty: a student who has never had to resist a notification in a classroom will meet that test for the first time as an adult, when no one is there to help.
One mark for identifying a precise language or structural choice, one for explaining its effect, and a third for doing both again with a different choice. Naming a device without an effect earns nothing. Creditable points include:
Ashworth builds the opposition first — “there were appeals, there were parents… there was a petition” — so that when the paragraph turns on the short sentence “And then, in the third week, the noise came back”, the change feels won rather than asserted. The paradox of a head teacher welcoming noise makes the reader pause, and she immediately controls how we take it: “I do not mean disturbance. I mean…”. Her three adjectives, “ordinary, untidy, human”, redefine the noise as evidence of life, and she then closes on three plain details — a football, the library, a boy’s question — which let the reader draw the conclusion instead of being handed it.
| Band | Descriptor |
|---|---|
| 5 9–10 | A thorough and sustained response. Ideas from both texts are selected, reworded and genuinely developed — implications are followed through and the two writers are set against each other rather than reported in turn. At least one idea is evaluated: weighed, questioned, or shown to be weaker or stronger than it first appears. The opposing case is answered, not merely named. |
| 4 7–8 | A competent and mostly assured response. Both texts are used and the main points are taken a step beyond the original. Some evaluation, though it may be confined to one paragraph; one or two ideas are reproduced rather than reshaped. The counter-argument is acknowledged and answered, if briefly. |
| 3 5–6 | A clear response drawing on both texts, but largely by reporting them. Development goes little further than restatement in different words. Evaluation is thin; the other side is mentioned and then dropped. |
| 2 3–4 | Some relevant material, mostly from one text, or lifted in phrases from the insert. Points are asserted rather than supported. A view is stated but not built. |
| 1 1–2 | Occasional relevance only. Copying or near-copying, or a general opinion piece about phones and teenagers that could have been written without opening the insert. |
These band descriptors are a study aid written for this site, not Cambridge’s published wording — the 0500 syllabus publishes assessment descriptors for Components 3 and 4 only.
The specific ideas a band 5 answer would develop. Four or five of these, properly worked, beat ten mentioned in passing:
| Band | Descriptor |
|---|---|
| 5 21–25 | The letter is fully inhabited: an appropriate opening and sign-off, a courteous but confident voice held from first line to last, and an awareness throughout that the reader is an adult with a decision to make. Structure is deliberate and cumulative — the position is established early, the concession is placed where it does most good, and the close asks for something specific. Vocabulary is wide, precise and formal without stiffness. Sentence lengths and types are varied for effect. Spelling, punctuation and grammar are almost always correct. |
| 4 16–20 | The form is clear and consistently maintained, with a suitable formal register. Structure is effective, with a visible line of argument and purposeful paragraphs, though one may be underweight. Vocabulary is generally wide and mostly precise, with the odd lapse into the conversational. Some conscious sentence variety. Accuracy is good; minor errors do not delay the reader. |
| 3 11–15 | Recognisably a letter, though the register may slide into everyday speech after the opening, or into essay prose. Structure is clear but mechanical, with paragraphs of similar shape and size. Vocabulary is adequate and largely plain; some repetition. Sentences are mostly simple and compound. Errors are noticeable but meaning is never lost. |
| 2 6–10 | Some sense of audience, but the form is thin — a salutation at the top and nothing letter-like after it — or the tone is inappropriate (demanding, sarcastic, over-familiar). Structure is loose; paragraphs are long or arbitrary. Vocabulary is simple and repetitive. Errors are frequent and sometimes obscure meaning. |
| 1 1–5 | Little sense of form or audience. Ideas are sequenced at random or presented in one undivided block. Vocabulary is very limited; sentences are short and repetitive or run together. Errors are persistent and the reader must work to follow. |
These band descriptors are a study aid written for this site, not Cambridge’s published wording — the 0500 syllabus publishes assessment descriptors for Components 3 and 4 only.
Dear Chair of Governors,
I am writing in response to your invitation to students, and I should say at the start that I changed my mind while thinking about it. I support a complete ban during the school day — provided the school will do two things it has not yet promised.
Dr Ashworth’s most useful sentence is not the one about pouches. It is that a rule enforced forty times a day is not a rule but a negotiation. That matches what I see. Our present policy does not fail because it is too gentle; it fails because it turns every teacher into a police officer for the first two minutes of every lesson, and spends her patience on something that does not matter. Two hundred and fourteen conversations in a term is not a discipline problem. It is a design fault.
Mr Okonjo is right, though, that a phone is not only a phone. A pupil who arrived in March and follows chemistry through a translation app is not being distracted; she is being taught. The answer is not to abandon the ban but to publish the exemptions plainly, before September, so that nobody has to write an apologetic letter to obtain one. An exemption granted quietly, as Dr Ashworth describes, is still a favour. It ought to be a right.
His second objection deserves more care. He argues that a ban postpones self-regulation, and I think that is true — but it is a reason to teach the habit, not a reason to leave us to acquire it during a lesson on the causes of the First World War. The two schools he studied reached almost the same result by teaching it openly. We could do both.
I would ask the governors to adopt the ban, publish the exemptions, and teach the habit. Any two of those three would waste the third.
Yours faithfully,
A Year 11 student
Commentary — where this earns its marks.
Write about one of the following. Write 350 to 450 words. This question tests writing only — all 40 marks are for AO2.
Section B is marked in two strands. Settle the band from the descriptors before you count anything, and read your piece as a stranger would — not remembering what you intended, only what is actually on the page.
| Band | Descriptor |
|---|---|
| 5 13–16 | Descriptive: a strong controlling idea, with detail chosen rather than collected; the piece moves — through time, through space, or by narrowing on one figure — so that the ending feels arrived at rather than reached. Narrative: a complete and credible shape, with a real complication and a resolution that grows out of it; character emerges through action, choice and speech rather than being announced. In both, structure is consciously managed: the opening does work, paragraph lengths vary for effect, the close resonates. |
| 4 10–12 | A clear and engaging piece with a sound design. Description has range and some genuine selection, though a passage or two merely lists. Narrative has a clear beginning, complication and end, with a resolution that satisfies even if it comes easily. Paragraphing is purposeful; the ending is competent rather than memorable. |
| 3 7–9 | A straightforward piece that does what the title asks. Description stays on the surface and tends to proceed item by item. Narrative is a sequence of events; the complication arrives late, or is resolved by coincidence. Structure is clear but predictable; the ending stops rather than closes. |
| 2 4–6 | Some relevant content, thinly developed. Description is a general inventory of what is there, with little sense of a particular place. Narrative is mostly summary and may drift from the title. Paragraphs are few, very long, or arbitrary. |
| 1 1–3 | Limited or unclear content, or a piece only loosely connected to the title. Little or no structure; a single undivided block, or an ending that abandons the piece rather than finishing it. |
These band descriptors are a study aid written for this site, not Cambridge’s published wording — the 0500 syllabus publishes assessment descriptors for Components 3 and 4 only.
| Band | Descriptor |
|---|---|
| 5 20–24 | Vocabulary is wide, exact and evidently controlled; imagery is fresh and does a job rather than decorating. Sentence structures are varied with real purpose — length, opening, type — and rhythm is used deliberately. The voice is distinctive and the register is sustained. Spelling, punctuation and grammar are consistently accurate, including speech punctuation and the joining of clauses; errors are rare and trivial. |
| 4 15–19 | Vocabulary is generally wide and mostly well chosen, with occasional over-reaching or a stray cliche. Clear evidence of deliberate sentence variety, not sustained throughout. Style is fluent and largely appropriate to the task. Accuracy is good; errors are minor and never delay the reader. |
| 3 10–14 | Vocabulary is adequate and mostly plain, with repetition and some imprecise choices. Sentences are chiefly simple and compound; variety is limited and effects are intermittent. Meaning is always clear. Errors are noticeable — comma splices, uncertain apostrophes, slips of tense — but do not obscure sense. |
| 2 5–9 | Vocabulary is simple and repetitive; adjectives are general. Sentence structure is uniform and sometimes faulty; the punctuation of dialogue is unreliable. Errors are frequent and occasionally obscure meaning. |
| 1 1–4 | Very limited vocabulary and sentence control. Punctuation is missing or misplaced over long stretches. Errors are persistent and the reader must reread to follow. |
These band descriptors are a study aid written for this site, not Cambridge’s published wording — the 0500 syllabus publishes assessment descriptors for Components 3 and 4 only.
| Total / 40 | What a paper at this standard looks like |
|---|---|
| 33–40 | A piece an examiner would choose to read twice. Shaped, controlled, exact, very nearly clean. |
| 25–32 | Clearly good writing with a sound design and some real moments, let down by flat patches or minor errors. |
| 17–24 | Competent and clear, but plain and predictable; it completes the task without surprising anybody. |
| 9–16 | Relevant but thin, listed rather than composed, with errors that begin to slow the reader down. |
| 1–8 | Fragmentary or barely attached to the title; accuracy makes reading difficult. |
These band descriptors are a study aid written for this site, not Cambridge’s published wording — the 0500 syllabus publishes assessment descriptors for Components 3 and 4 only.
The coat came in on a Tuesday, at the bottom of a bin bag with four other coats and a bread maker. Mrs Iyer priced it at four hundred rupees and told me to check the pockets, which is the first rule of the shop and the only one anybody enjoys.
The outer pockets held a bus ticket and a boiled sweet welded to its wrapper. The inner pocket had a hole in it, and through the hole, down in the hem, something heavy had settled and stayed.
It was a watch. Steel, scratched across the face, the strap worn pale where a wrist had been. It was still going.
I should have put it in the tray behind the counter. Instead I put it in my own pocket, and for four days I did not take it out, and for four days I thought about very little else. On Wednesday I told myself that nobody gives away a coat they have not searched. On Thursday I told myself the shop would only sell it. On Friday I stopped explaining and wore it to school, where Adil said it was the kind of watch his grandfather used to have, and I said yes, and felt the word land somewhere behind my ribs.
On Saturday a woman came in carrying the manual for the bread maker.
“You took a delivery on Tuesday,” she said. “Five coats. It was my father’s flat.”
Mrs Iyer began to explain that donations could not be returned. The woman was already shaking her head.
“I don’t want the coats,” she said. “I’m not asking for the coats. There was a watch in one of them. It isn’t worth anything. He wore it for forty years and it never once kept the right time.”
I could feel it against my leg, ticking, keeping the wrong time perfectly.
There is a version of this in which I say nothing, and it would not have been difficult. The shop was busy. The woman was already turning towards the door. Mrs Iyer had gone back to the till. I have thought about it a great deal since, and I do not believe I decided anything at all; my hand was in my pocket before I had finished being the sort of person who would keep it.
“It was in the lining,” I said.
She did not thank me, which I was glad of. She turned it over twice, fastened it round her own wrist on the last hole, and walked out into the heat with her sleeve pulled down over it, as though something might get in.
Commentary — where this earns its marks.