There is no Formula for an A* or a 7 at IB.

The students I work with don’t need another essay formula.  They need to learn how to think.

At A Level and IB students aiming for the top marks need to be able to question an obvious interpretation, or decide what actually matters in a text. It is crucial that they answer the question that has been set rather than reproduce everything they know (and that also means no prepared paragraphs).  Most importantly they need  to build an argument that belongs to them.

There really isn't a formula when you get to IB and A Level...

A friend of mine lectures at UCL.  We were out with our dogs recently, talking about students, which is apparently what teachers do when they are meant to be relaxing. He described something he is seeing more and more: bright students, excellent results, beautifully organised notes - and a rather touching belief that somewhere there must be The Formula.  The formula for the essay.  The formula for the argument.  The formula for the First.  (Ideally in six colour-coded bullet points with a model answer attached.)

Somewhere between GCSE, MYP and sixth form, we have become very good at teaching students to ask us to show them what they need to do.  And rather less good at preparing them to think for themselves and interpret a text with confidence. This gap becomes apparent very quickly at IB and A Level.

Someone hands you A Streetcar Named Desire, a Carol Ann Duffy poem or an unfamiliar non-literary text and asks something deeply inconvenient like:

“What is the writer actually doing here?”

“How many paragraphs should I write?”

“It depends.”

“How many quotations?”

“Also depends.”

“Should I use PETAL?”

“You may.  But it is unlikely to save you.”

Structures are useful.  PEE, PEAL, PETAL, thesis statements and topic sentences all teach students how arguments work. The problem comes when the scaffold becomes the building.  That is where students who have always been “good at English” can suddenly wobble.  They are often excellent at working out what the teacher wants and delivering it efficiently. Then IB or A Level English announces that it would now quite like some intellectual independence.

Preferably by Tuesday.

This is also where the question about the 7 - or the A* - usually appears.  “What do I have to do to get one?”  The slightly irritating answer is that there is no formula.  If there were, every student would already have it laminated and pinned to the fridge. I would have it laminated to mine.

My UCL friend sees students arriving at university still trying to discover exactly what the lecturer wants. I see the beginning of it: students starting IB and A Level and realising that the methods which brought them excellent results at 16 are no longer quite enough. That is the part of teaching this age group I find most interesting, helping them work out what they actually think, test that thinking against the text and trust themselves enough to build an argument that did not arrive pre-packaged from a teacher, revision guide (or chatbot).  It isn’t that information is scare - independent thought is.