My son is in year 10 so just started his GCSE's. Just after some experience of having gone through this, especially if you have a DC who is already above the required performance skill level.
DS has done grade 6 piano and due to sit grade 7 early next year.
It seems like the school is expecting him to perfect a piece every half term with about 4 weeks notice and no guidance on suitable pieces. He performed a piece that turned out to be grade 6 in difficulty, as he liked it, with 4 weeks notice that he was practising alongside other pieces for his grade 7. It sounded pretty good to me and his music teacher agreed that whilst it wasn't perfect at all, he plays it competently and pretty well considering the time he spent on it. But his school teacher marked him right down because it wasn't "performance ready". I get that he doesn't need to do anything above a grade 5, but this was his first assessment and who's to decide what is a grade 5 piece apart from if it's from an exam book.
I think next time I'm going to tell him to do a really easy piece grade 2 say, and get it perfect, is this the way to go? Also, just seems a waste of time every half term and gets in the way of prep for his grade 7. He does lots of extra curricular sport so time is limited and doesn't have the luxury of lots of practise time, also need to consider all the other homework and revision etc
Seems to me, if he needs to get a grade 5 piece perfect for the gcse at the end, he's already capable of it and can properly concentrate on just that for a month and get it done, but have to go through this every half term in the meanwhile.
Or am I understanding this wrong?