Dear everybody,
My child is doing her Grade 5 practical next year and hopefully her Grade 6 practical the following year. However, she is a young girl (10 years now), and is worried if she will be able to stretch her fingers for the Grade 6 pieces.
Can anybody please advise if you would need to stretch your fingers greatly for Grade 6 pieces? She will be 12 when she takes her Grade 6 practical, but she is only average or slightly below average in size.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Best regards to you.

Maybe the best advice is she should stop worrying about it now!!
Your post raises several points - firstly that she has 2 more years of growth and probably some puberty changes to come. From my 12 yr old son's friends the girls are way further developed than the boys. while petite now she may well 'shoot up' within the next year or so - gracious some of his friends look more like 14-15 than 12!
Secondly .. why the rush to go onto her grade 6, doing a grade a year when so young. If you read a number of experienced teachers on this forum they all advocate gaining a broad playing repetoire, really getting secure in technique and generally playing, playing and more playing in a wide genre rather than concentrating solely on grade exam work.
Great your daughter has aspirations but developing her overall musicality is far more important than passing an exam - just take her progress as it comes - if she can't manage the stretches wait a year maybe.

Musicman's Mum

Thank you so much, I forgot about the puberty growth!
My child was worried if she could stretch her fingers for Grade 6, and I guessed I took on her worries as well!

I'm going to be taking grade 6 practical in the Easter term next year & I can't see that your daughter would have a problem stretching her fingers. I don't think any of the pieces stretch higher than an octave anyway so she should be OK. There is a lot of jumping around (the piano, I mean!) & you do have to cross over your hands a bit but it all depends on what pieces you choose.

Lisa xxx

If chords are too big for small hands, use your own discretion and spread it out a wee bit

IrisH - LoonY

Tell your daughter , don't worry coz i did my grade 6 when i'm 13 and i have extremly small hand .
It's only grade 6 not grade 8 .

I recently went to a concert where an 8 year old boy played a bunch of LRSM standard pieces (Chopin etudes, Mendelssohn Rondo Capriccioso etc), and while he had a small reach, his relaxed hands and brilliant technique meant that it didn't matter. I'm sure the same applies to your daughter.