Reference · top band only · 2026 and 2025
Annotated exemplars
Real grade 7 student work, paragraph by paragraph, with the examiner lens overlaid. Use these for structure, the depth and range of adjectives and SOI integration moves, not for borrowing content.
The 2026 exemplar responds to that year's SOI and is the closest model for what your work should look like if your unit is Brechtian. The 2025 exemplar uses a different SOI and style, expressionism, not Brecht. Read it for how it is written, not what it says.
The two exemplars
This year's model · grade 72026
Epic Theatre, beauty standards
“Beauty and uniqueness are found in our differences.” Brecht / Epic Theatre. Identities and Relationships, Aesthetics. A full grade 7 PCUP with strong Brechtian theory, specific evidence from Mother Courage and The Threepenny Opera and a devised piece that uses spass, multirolling, placecards and gestus to argue the SOI. This group's devised performance idea: Disney princesses and pageant culture.
Matches the 2026 unit · read content and structure
Previous year · grade 72025
Expressionism, phone addiction
“Art imagines possible futures.” Expressionism. Scientific and technological innovation. A full grade 7 PCUP from the previous cohort. Different style, different influences (Complicité, Katie Mitchell, Toller, Treadwell), different SOI. The structural moves transfer. The content does not. Watch how the SOI is integrated, not bolted on.
Different SOI · read for structure only
How to read an exemplar that responds to a different SOI
What transfers
Sentence level structure. The depth and range of adjectives used. The order of points in a paragraph: name, unpack, effect, impact on the audience, SOI. The use of timestamps. The way the SOI is woven through every paragraph rather than tagged on at the end. These are the band 7 mechanics and they work for any SOI.
What does not transfer
The specific SOI claims. The style studied and its influences. The production critiqued. The unit's stimulus. Borrowing these will read as a paraphrase of someone else's argument and will not match this year's assessment context.
“I am looking at how this is written, not what it says.”
What the annotations mean
A move you should learn from. Sentence structure, SOI integration, depth and range of adjectives, specific evidence.
A solid move that does the job but could be sharper. Useful to see what 5 to 6 versus 7 to 8 looks like in the same paragraph.
A weak spot or risky phrasing even at grade 7. Somewhere to do better than the exemplar does.