Music grade exams - how do you make sure DC is on track?

[SWLM]

We had bad experience with a tutor who has promised my DC will sit an exam in December but it never happened and he provided a lame excuse.
Now with a new tutor I wonder if there's a way to make sure DC is staying on track for the next exam, while not looking like a control freak?

"On track for exam" makes me cringe a little

Does the child want to get exams ; is the focus exams or ( imo better) learning to play? Do they enjoy practising ? Do they do their scales as well as pieces ?

Honestly I wouldn't bother with exams unless child is desperate to do them.

DD has never done an exam in her first study but was G8 level at 12, never done any in one of her other instruments (was G5/6 level within a year of starting it).

We did do exams in piano and it held her back massively. She loathed the pieces, refused to play things if they weren't classified as her grade level (she's ND and gets very fixed ideas) and ultimately I called a stop to lessons as she was so unhappy. Since we ditched the lessons and exams she has found a new love for the piano and plays every day and made so much more progress.

Just learn to play to enjoy it and try all kinds of music. Rather than fixate on the same 3 pieces that will kill all the fun.

FWIW, DD had a choice of music scholarships for secondary - not a single school, state or private, cared a jot that she had no pieces of paper to wave. She's off to university to study music composition and hopefully a career in that area - and still has nothing more than Grade 2 piano on paper for any instrument!

Tricky for a non-musician. You really should try to find a teacher you trust and be guided by them.

One thing you can do is track whether the amount of practice done is realistic.

On this page you can see the total learning hours required for a particular grade. This is teaching (" guided learning") plus practice hours.

https://www.abrsm.org/en-gb/more-information/regulation-and-ucas-points

Add on the appropriate figures for theory study too. But it's all only a very rough guide.

@midgetastic I understand, but here are my points:

I. I'm not a musician and have no idea how to check quality of teaching other then exams.

II. Secondary schools we are looking at need DC to be at least Grade 3 to participate in orchestras and bands and it would be stupid to spend years and £££ learning the instrument and to not get a formal acknowledgement.
Even bands for primary-aged children require grade 1.

III. Personal negative experience so I will not blindly trust anyone in the future.

I’m not sure what you mean by on track as there is a massive difference between the rate at which people learn. Is your child making good progress and do they enjoy playing? Some tutors seem to like exams more than others. My daughter is a music scholar but has not taken every exam in all instruments. Often for scholarships etc they will ask more about the level of playing but I’m not sure my daughter would have been invited to audition had she not been able to evidence the grades she had taken.

Maybe just mention your DC had been preparing for an exam and you’d still like for them to take it? The new teacher will want to make sure your DC is ready. I think if they say they are not ready then just don’t push it.

Find other parents and get recommendations

Listen to the practise - you don't have to be a musical to recognise if a piece is getting better week on week.

Check Scales are included in the practice - sounds like "do ray me so fA La te doh" like the sound of music - that's the boring bit of practise that's really important and will make or break an exam

Is the child enjoying it

How does the child feel about exams

Playing a wide diversity of music and having fun are more important than exams and the "grade 3 level" for a group is normal and not everyone will have grade 3 as long as they can play at that standard ( ok you will get a strange group where the leader is snooty about those things but usually as long as the player is good it won't matter )

I'm a piano teacher and some (by no means all) of mine do grades. The most important thing as a parent if you/your dc are certain about taking grades is to establish a consistent and predictable practice schedule. That way the teacher will have a better chance of predicting/facilitating the necessary trajectory within the timeframe.

It's impossible to get a child to peak at exactly the right time (and avoid either last minute pressure/panic or the risk of going off the boil and not getting back to peak) unless we have a good idea of how they learn and how long it would ordinarily take that particular student. If practice is infrequent or unreliable for whatever reason (and of course life gets in the way sometimes), it's way harder for the student to be ready.

Thank you. DS was enjoing the lessons and making good progress (because I insisted on practicing), but in the autumn term the tutor started taking the piss and cancelled around 40% of pre-paid lessons due to his touring and other excuses. So my DS was left practicing same things for week without any supervision and I was both upset and disappointed in this person as teaching is obviously not a priority for him.

I'm not going to make a fuss about the exams but want to make sure it's done and on time.

Oh that was poor form - no one wants the same music over and over

That's really poor - such a shame for your DS.

Instrumental teacher here.
I'm aware it's hard for non-musicians, but grade exams actually only give you the barest idea of progress, and don't really help you measure how well the teacher's doing. It's possible for poorly-taught candidates with poor technique to pass at any level, albeit not as well as candidates who are better-taught.

I'd be very surprised if any group 'requires' grade one, or indeed grade whatever- people who work in music are generally well aware that some teachers don't do exams at all with their students often for very good reasons. If a group requires a player to be at grade 1 level, there's no expectation that they'll have taken the exam just that their teacher can confirm they're playing at this level.

Disagree with @Laboheme78 - the teacher's reference is the normal method of confirming what level a candidate for a music scholarship is playing at (even for conservatoire entry or for entry into competitions such as BBC Young Musician), and is or should be more highly rated than an exam pass unless at diploma level, and it would be very surprising for a candidate with the right level and a reference confirming this to be refused a hearing at audition- and if it did happen it would be a sign that this is a music scholarship you don't want to take up!

100% what @HalfALoafIsBetterThanNoBread says.

I would be shocked if any school wanted actual exam certificates and it would really put me off if they did. I would wonder if they trusted their own ears.

We didn't come across a single school that had an issue with no exams, they merely asked for a rough guide to grade level.

OP, it can be a real problem having teachers who are working musicians. DD has some now as she can either do an online session, or it's a not a problem having a break for a few months and then picking back up.

However in the early years I would say it's essential to have a teacher who is first and foremost a music teacher and can deliver consistency.

There is also a lot to be said for parents attending classes (not necessarily in the room) so they can understand what is happening - or having a recording of each class (just use a phone) if that works better so that you can use them for practice and to understand where they need to focus.

As others have said, actually having an exam certificate is pretty much never important. The grades are usually there as a guide so teachers or parents know which ensemble is appropriate to send which child to. They may not even ask, you say (having seen it's grade 1+ and your DS is good enough) my son would like to join the school orchestra, they say great bring your violin on Monday.

Let your DC settle in with the new teacher with no pressure from your part to do exams. Teacher planning an exam straight away would already be a bad sign in my view. They need to get to know each other, teacher needs to explore strengths and weaknesses and find out how your DC learns. If they try to start exam prep straight off they won't know how fast your DC will pick things up and are fairly likely to end up with the wrong timing again - so either DC will be ready too soon and get bored, or will again not be ready in time for the planned sitting and have to defer. If your DS got most of the way to preparing an exam with the old teacher, it may be best to count that one as done, get settled with new teacher and pick up at a later grade in due course. You don't need to do all grades.

How you know your DC is progressing. Exams aside, you should be hearing them learning new music on a regular basis, and hearing each piece get better from week to week. There should be progression in the music they're learning - at early stages they often have a teaching book that they progress through, as the music gets more advanced it may be more targetted particular pieces that address different skills. A good teacher will also be setting them appropriate scales and/or exercises even if there isn't currently an exam in view.

With a young child preparing for their first exam, I think you should be very in touch with what they have to do and see that they're practising for each component. If you can be in lessons, do. Or look at your DC's lesson notes to make sure they're remembering to practice all the things they should be. Learn enough yourself to understand what's going on. I'm musical so that was easier for me - but when DC were doing gymnastics badges or swimming badges I looked up enough to understand what they had to tick off so i could encourage appropriately, and got DC to explain the bits I didn't understand.

PS missing a lot of lessons was a bad sign and it's good you've found a new teacher. Deferring an exam the child wasn't ready for is pretty normal as it's not always predictable how fast a child will pick something up. So that bit on its own is not necessarily a bad sign.

I can confirm this. My son is t conservatoire and hasn't taken any exams. Many students at conservatoires or specialist music schools come from abroad where exams are not taken.

Everything goes on the audition. The grades are only useful when the young person doesn't have the academic qualifications eg Grade 8 practical & theory can be used instead of an A level.

However I do have personal experience of this kind of thing. We are musicians, me very amateur but dh lectures at university/conservatoire level. But we trusted our daughter's piano teacher. We received notification that she was being entered for an exam and signed the form. We were horrified to find she hadn't been taught one of the pieces, had done no aural tests practice and was being taught to play the exam pieces by ear (she started lessons having been taught the basics of piano & how to read music by me using a tutor book. The teacher said he expected dh to teach her the aural, how when at the time he was working and lodging away from home 5 nights per week I don't know.