Summer Term Music and Music Exams Thread

good job trout. Enjoy the summer!

Yay!
Dd got the result this evening. She scored 133/ distinction
She is over the moon :-)

We don't have to bother about having time off anymore, but when we visit the school to meet dds friends, its like a scratched record the amount of teachers who tell us we did the right thing.
The HTs here are not brilliant for allowing time off, some are fine others not so.
It makes it hard for county groups as half can't get time off for important rehearsals/ summer courses.
If we added that to the many other things she does outside the LA she wouldn't be allowed to do half she does.

Julie Fantastic

We are patiently waiting for exam results for sax and violin, dh said he could get them anytime from friday.
She has a place in county orchestra, hoping she'll fit in as the youngest is 2 years older than her

Quick comment:

Viola = awesome

When I think of the amount of days my kids have lost for off timetable enforced 'activities' this term, and consider how many of these have been music based (hint - very few. 1 for DD2, none for DD1, 2 for DS (but loads more for sporty things) I get quite annoyed. But luckily none of their schools has a problem authorising them to be off for music stuff so I guess that makes it ok.

DS1 went on the annual school band trip for 8 of the last 10 school days of term. (He is Y11 so didn't matter for him but its for all year groups). I think I would be a bit annoyed if we were refused permission for a music based course. Plus the last week is activity week anyway. And school here would have been finished anyway.

Dd took her grade 5 on the 7th July ... Still haven't heard results. She's starting to think she did something very wrong. I wish they would get a move on with it.

We were also Wednesday finishers so DS had three days authorised leave for his course. I know that the county intermediate orchestra have a week away in term time in July so if I had to argue my case I could have done but school were fine about it.

Oh perhaps we were quite late breaking up here then. No music courses here this summer. Ds2 went on the GAM one a couple of years ago. He was loving it and then caught a stomach bug from someone else there and had to come home. Bit naughty - someone had come with a dodgy stomach and passed it on to 6 others on the course.

Raspberry - DD1 was given authorised leave to attend her thing last week. Her school broke up on Wednesday. I think, had they refused, I would have made some pointed comments about all the geography and history trips they do in school time (and not, it has to be said, cheaply). Luckily they were absolutely lovely about it all.

DD1 was on a 6 day residential last week, came home Saturday afternoon, then set off on Sunday morning for another one. So, she's doing plenty of stuff (one assumes. They had showcases every night last week, it was incredible (I was able to go to one, due to organising my work schedule beneficially, and my sister was able to go to most of them (and ended up with several colleagues and friends we were at school with accompanying her to the last one because it had all been so fabulous))). DD2 only finished school on Friday, she did some playing and singing at church on Sunday bit that's it so far (today we went to see Globe live at our local picturehouse at lunchtime (v long lunch for me!) and I haven't had the arse to make either her or her brother do any practice or theory since we got home). Tomorrow though, they will both do some practice in the morning (their choice what) and some theory with me at lunchtime. To be fair to her DD2 did ask DD1 to dig out her old jazz piano books when she got back on Saturday afternoon, but DD1 declined as she had other things to find (her performing 'uniform' for this week, for a start).

Well done schilke household. Worth waiting for.

Our state schools State schools locally finished the previous week, so it would have fitted some, it gets very annoying when its all different.

to the viola!

Fabulous news schilke that both can celebrate with no sibling angst!

I had never heard of music schools before this year and v pleased we gave it a go, I think it supplements development really well.

That's an excellent set of results there schilke although I'm not sure how I'd feel about celebrating success with a viola!

At last the results are in. Distinctions for ds2 gr 7 violin and dd2 gr 2 trumpet. Dd2 was particularly happy as she got a merit for gr 1 and was very annoyed when her older sister got a distinction for gr 1 clarinet!

Ds2 celebrated by announcing he'd like a viola....

Ealingwestmum - ds2 was interested in that music course, but it doesn't fit for state schools as he only broke up last Wednesday. He did the Gatton course in Surrey at Easter and loved it. I think that's where he got the viola idea from as they had no violas. Some of the violins had a brief lesson and took it turns to try out playing the viola part. He can't wait for next year's course.

We're not onto summer practise yet, last week DS had a five day residential course and went straight off that onto another five day course. I might give him next week off for good behaviour (I can't really moan about him being a slacker when he'd obviously done enough, he got the end chair for the week) then it's the family holidays. After that the six weeks are down to three weeks and it's back to theory and we'll see whether he can remember what to do with a trombone.

schilke - cannot imagine what your son is going through with such a long wait...fingers x'd still he gets the result he is aiming for.

Summer update from us - DD really enjoyed Kent Music School (her 1st Music residential) - hard work but lovely school setting and attending kids. May be an annual event in our summer calendar.

Practice stamina improved as a result - enjoying learning Schindler's List right now...hard to listen to her trying to hit the high notes but I am trying not to react as it is a beautiful piece, if she gets it eventually!

Summer practise........

DS2 has done some grade 4/5 theory most days (he has work set in both books, not sure why!), piano most days and trombone some days.

Clarinet hasn't been touched, however he had an unexpected lesson yesterday and I think its motivated him.

DD hasn't touched her sax. Or the piano.

DS1 procrastinated by giving his trombone its much needed bath but has done a bit.

From ABRSM email received a while back:

For exams in week beginning 2–7 June
results 9–16 June

For exams in week beginning 9–14 June
results 23–28 June

For exams in week beginning 16–21 June
results 30 June – 12 July

For exams in week beginning: 23–28 June
results 7–12 July

For exams in week beginning: 30 June – 5 July
results 14–23 July

For exams in week beginning:7–12 July
results 24–31 July

For exams in week beginning:14–19 July
results 31 July – 8 August

However that's the date when your teacher will have received an email notifying them that the results are live online, not the date that you receive your certificates. So I received the results by email in those weeks and the certificates/mark sheets a bit later - especially because of my location - but the children don't get them yet because of the holidays, though I've notified them/their parents of results. If you think you should have had results by now, you might want to phone the teacher, who'll need to log in to the ABRSM website. However, we only get results that way, not the mark sheet, comments or certificate. I think as teachers we'd usually wait until we have the actual comments from the examiner so we can discuss the why of the marks.

In our experience:

If its ABRSM the sheets come with the certificates after the marks have been available on line for the the teacher/person who entered. Usually a week or so after the marks.

Trinity send out the marks via the comments sheets and the certificates separately later.

In both cases it then depends on the teacher.

We usually get the marks sheet when we go back to her music centre after summer hols.

Hi we expect to get our marks sheet back when lessons resume in sept - we just know the mark so far. You should know whether it was a pass etc from the mark you have been given?

Does anyone know when we might find out the actual grades and marking? DS took his grade1 on 4th of July, his teacher let us know he had passed with a merit but didn't have the actual marks at that time.

I need to know now!! 3 weeks ago they did their exams. This is the trouble with them being entered at dh's school - they have a special visit to the school and it seems to take so much longer to get the results. Ds2 is twisting himself in knots about it!

Thanks Waffle