DD's taking her violin G1 exam next week. Her teacher has asked me what my plans are for her. At first I didn't know what he meant by that, then he explained that many of his students' parents want their kids to just go through grade after grade (so sometimes it leads to doing like 2 grades a year or so), rather than spend a couple of months not preparing for exams and just playing for fun, before preparing for another exam.
I never knew any other way. When I was a child, I'd only do a grade exam a year, and spend a couple of months between exams not even preparing for exams and just playing other songs.
I didn't know it was as common as he made it sound to do more than a grade a year. I grew up in another country and never was given the option of doing more than one grade a year. DH, who is always keeping an eye on the finances, thinks it is a good idea to just rush through the grades. I'm not sure about that, partly because I'm not used to this plus I think I would be quite stressed out myself if I had to do it this way when I was young.
Any thoughts on this?