The importance of a distinction Options

[FullofWind]

Should you only sit grade 8 when you know there is a very high chance that a distinction will be achieved? There will be musicians for whom this would be a mammoth task but if a child was capable of getting a comfortable pass, would it be better to wait up to two years until they were beyond distinction level? How are resits viewed by conservatoires if a child wishes to gain a distinction at a later date?

[Tixylix]

If more junior school children were actually stretched, rather than having much of their time wasted, I see no reason why they could not pass A-levels in sciences, history, geography, languages at age 11 or thereabouts.

But why on earth would you want them to? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

But then - I feel pretty much the same way about higher level Music exams .... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blush.gif)

At that age isn't it a major part of a child's job to play?

I agree, though I don't think it would be too much of a stretch if they were doing one at a time. Maybe one at 11, one at 13 and one at 15? I think a lot of exam stress happens because children are told that they should be stressed, and obviously the teachers are stressed and they pick up on that. There's no reason you can't have time to play and to study as long as you're not expecting them to take on too much at once. My school got a couple of us to take the Key Stage 2 SATs at age 7 and I don't remember being stressed in the slightest, in fact I was excited because they told us we were being allowed to do extra tests because we did so well in the first ones - the way it was phrased made it sound like a privilege rather than the extra stress of doing more tests. I was a lot more stressed when I took exactly the same exam at age 11 even though I'd already done it 4 years earlier, just because they made such a big deal out of it.