A teenager will be joining Havering Sixth Form College after she achieved the GCSE grades she needed by persuading her headteacher to lock away her phone for a month

Just over a year ago, Andreea-Denisa Ciubotaru, a student at Eastlea Community School in Canning Town, was warned that she faced failing her exams because of her addiction to her smartphone.

So in a desperate bid to achieve the results she needed to get into sixth form, she persuaded her headmaster Stephen Gillatt to lock her phone away for a month so she could revise for her exams with no distractions.

Her tactic paid off as she achieved 7, 6 and 5s so has secured the grades needed to go to study A-levels in government and politics, criminology and sociology and will start sixth form next month.

She said: “I’m so happy, I really didn’t think this would be possible.

“My mum didn’t believe that I would stick to it but I knew I had too.”