My school took my calculator mid exam and I ran out of time. Were they wrong?
I sat Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Mathematics A Modular Higher Tier Unit 1H, 4WM1H/01.
During the exam, my main calculator was taken away 5 minutes before the exam started. It was a Casio fx CG100 in UK Exam Mode. I was told it was not allowed because it can draw graphs and was too advanced, so I had to switch to my old spare calculator during the exam.
This completely messed me up. I had revised for months using the fx CG100 and I was much faster with it. The buttons on my spare calculator are in different places, so during the exam I kept pressing the wrong things. There were times where I wrote something for a question, realised it was wrong, deleted it, wrote it again, got it wrong again, and had to delete it again because I was not used to the layout. The screen on my spare calculator was also much worse, and I was used to the big clear screen on the CG100, so everything felt slower and harder to read.
So it was not just a small inconvenience. It affected me mentally during the exam too. I got stressed that I was going to run out of time because I had to keep redoing things and adjusting to a calculator I was not used to under all that stress. And I actually did run out of time in the end. I could not do everything properly.
What makes this worse is how random and inconsistent it was. They did not properly check every calculator in the room first. They seemed to notice mine because of the big screen and how it looked, then took it. Another student also had the same calculator, but from what I know they did not notice it and did not take that one. So it feels like mine was singled out because it looked more obvious, not because they checked all calculators properly and applied the rule consistently.
After the exam, my dad spoke to the school, and it looked like they never seen this calculator before and did not know it existed, and they also said there is nothing they can do about what happened now. But at the same time, they kept insisting that calculators that draw graphs are not allowed in this exam. They also said they will not allow me to use it in future exams either.
After checking the rules myself, this is what I found:
Pearson says calculators may be used in this exam.
Pearson lists certain prohibited calculator features, but graph drawing itself is not listed as one of them.
JCQ says graphical calculators are allowed unless they are specifically prohibited in the awarding body’s specification, as long as they are compliant.
Casio’s own exam guidance also says the fx CG100 is permitted in UK examinations and shows Pearson Edexcel as permitted, with UK Exam Mode disabling restricted functions.
So my questions are:
- Based on this, was my calculator actually allowed?
- Does this sound like grounds for a written complaint?
- Is it reasonable to ask for special consideration since this happened during the exam, affected me mentally, slowed me down, and led to me running out of time?
- Does the fact that another student had the same calculator and theirs was not taken make this even worse?
There is also camera footage from the exam room showing what happened.
I mainly want honest answers, because this feels unfair, inconsistent, and genuinely damaging to my performance, and I do not want the school to just get away with saying graphing calculators are banned if that is not actually what the rules say.