Hello again all
Wow this thread has grown like topsy!
Righto - I went to see the teacher today. All we know is that DD got 80 out of 150 for the exam. No mark sheet as yet.
We know that DD did not attempt the sight reading so that was 20 marks gone straight off. Teacher said she talked during the pieces and stopped and started, ie, when she made a mistake she said "oh I've made a mistake" and stopped before resuming again. I don't know how many times this happened, but I don't think it was too many.
DD tells me that the examiner wasn't very friendly and she was nervous but she did the aural ok and "most of" the scales. Until we get the mark sheet back we won't know the full story.
After sleeping on it I was thinking about DD as a learner. The thing is she is a flighty, imaginative child, not inclined to focus or concentrate generally. She wants to play and enjoy her lessons but she doesn't half fanny about and teacher isn't very good at stopping her. She's not naughty, just very chatty and distractable.
Her teacher is not strict enough with her IMO, and I now know why after our conversation today.....He told me he has aspergers. A lot of things make sense - why he might have problems managing DD, and why I feel like he doesn't communicate very well with me (hence the results by text). He also said no one else failed across all the grades he teaches.
We decided that (a) she has musical ability (b) if she can focus and bring some discipline to her playing she will be probably be ok and (c) we should carry on for a couple of months and see what happens with me sitting in on lessons and him itemising what he wants DD to do outside of lessons, with an emphasis on both cracking on with sightreading and scales and learning some new pieces to relieve the boredom. He said it's up to us whether we repeat grade 1 or try to move forwards.
I spoke to DD tonight and told her about the result. She was very upset and told me that she had found the exam very difficult and the examiner was not nice and she wanted a nice lady examiner next time. She is very keen to continue though, and understood that I had to set some conditions.
On a final note, I am still thinking of a change of teacher, though, as I think maybe a different teacher would have prepared her differently/better and perhaps, despite their good relationship, they just don't suit eachother. But I would feel bad jumping ship when I do think that DD's "learning style" for want of a better expression is a big part of this.
Thanks for all of your comments - they are hugely valuable and interesting. I hope I've answered most of the queries that have popped up. We should have the mark sheet next week. I'll come back and report on that next Tuesday after DD's next lesson.