Greetings;

Yesterday one 8 year old student came in 15 minutes late to the ABRSM piano assessment, and was not allowed to participate in the assessment.

Has this happened anywhere else in the world?

There were other students from the same group who arrived ahead of time who could have been assessed in the person's time slot until the person arrived.

So my question is, has this every happened anywhere else in the world?
And is this a standard and acceptable practice of the ABRSM.

Or is this an especially unusual situation.

Thanks

I imagine it depends on circumstances and timings, and also whether the people who were early were willing to be assessed before their expected time.

15 minutes late would basically cover the whole time the assessment took, yesno? So starting at what should have been the end time would have put the whole day's examining out of joint.

While I think it's sensible and reasonable to try and fit someone in if possible, if a candidate is asked to turn up 10 minutes early and actually come 15 minutes late (effectively 25 minutes later than they "should" have been), then it is not outside the bounds of reason that they're told "tough luck".

If others are willing to swap, then that's one thing, and great, but no one should be _made_ to take an earlier exam just because someone else is very late, that would be unfair on those who've turned up when they were told to.

It's a great shame though, especially for an 8 year old I would hope that others candidates would be asked if they were willing to swap once it was realised a child was late - I guess the stewards must be certain one person is late before passing their slot on to someone else. It can't be easy to organise who's going where and what breaks the examiner needs etc, so when someone is that late it would conceivably throw the whole thing into disarray.

I don't think that this is standard as such - from all the exams I've been at the stewards do their best to get everything done with the minimum stress for the panic to the candidates, and I think it probably depends on how many exams there were that day and whether the schedule was already running on time. I have to admit that I think it is perfectly acceptable - hard as it may be for the 8 year old - as sarah_flute has pointed out they arrived 25 minutes after the time they were supposed to arrive. I know circumstances happen but that is pretty late, not just 5 or 10 minutes and it would put the whole schedule out. Other students shouldn't be forced to take their exam early, or to take it late due to another student being unorganised and not arriving on time.

Have never heard of this happening before, and am quite shocked! Our local steward is so friendly and helpful, and I can't imagine her allowing this to happen in our area. Very sorry for the candidate concerned.

Stephen I'm sorry your pupil had this disappointment - it's quite likely not to have been his fault that he was late.

One thing puzzles me a bit - the main exam period hasn't started yet here in UK - was this a visit (ie not at a centre) or are you elsewhere - and would either of these things make a difference to how the timetable worked ?

It is especially sad for an 8 year old who was probably not in control of what time he or she arrived.

On the other side of the coin, we'd probably express just as much concern and sorrow over a parent posting in the parents forum "my 8 year old was made to take his exam early when we'd not long arrived, and wasn't at all ready or warmed up."

One student being late should not mean others are forced to take their assessments early if they are not willing. Stewards cannot perform miracles with the timetabling

At my local centre, the steward will bend over backwards to sort things out - some of my students have been asked to go in early before (they obliged). Usually my local steward would ask another student to go in early, or ask the examiner if he/ she minded taking their break a bit earlier (leaving time for the late arrival to be slotted in). However, things like this still happen and I have to say I think it's reasonable for the Board to disqualify someone who's 25 minutes later than they suggested. It's a shame for the child though.

If I were an examiner/ steward, I'd like to think I'd fit them in later - but if it involves other people's exams running late, it's not really fair.

I think Stephen is in the USA.

I'm guessing Stephen means the prep test, as a performance assessment would not usually be available to an 8 year old? But I could be wrong

If things are running ahead of schedule a natural gap will emerge at some stage and late candidates could be fitted in then. However it's probably not so easy if things are running late - which could happen even if everyone arrived early. (Slow sight-readers, etc.) Maybe this is what happened on this occasion. If it's the last day of a session, the examiner might have a plane/train to catch at the end of the day and simply not have the option to squeeze in another slot.

I'm not in England.

The test was piano level 1.

There were 2 other students who would have gladly taken his spot.
The people at the exam, refused to hear of such a possibility - this year for the first time in my experience.

So it would not have thrown anything off.

The student paid his fee, practiced for greater than 6 months on the material etc.

I was just curious to know if anyone on this forum has ever actually seen something like this happen before.

Was there a good reason why your student was late?

A tangent here, but I had an experience where the examiner was incredibly accommodating. I am ashamed to admit that I once forgot to turn up to an exam to accompany a grade 1 pupil (too busy with work is my only excuse). The poor pupil waited and waited for me, the examiner saw other pupils in her place and finally at the end of the session examined her anyway unaccompanied! I was mortified when I realised that I had forgotten and paid my pupil her examination fee back - and thankfully she got a distinction anyway! Why didn't the steward ring me - she had my number in front of her. But my point is that this examiner was very accommodating and I was very grateful that he was so considerate.

That was what I thought too - then I noticed that his original post says he's in England. But apparently not ...

It would be useful to know also if this was one of the main boards - AB, TG or LCM - or another board. It's intersting that stephen sutherland refers to "levels" and "assessments", whereas these main boards talk about grades and exams. Was this one of the above?

Slightly off topic but to address the question about doctors, if someone turns up late for an appointment with me I usually see them at the end of surgery and usually they are quite happy to wait. I know most of my colleagues would try and accommodate most late patients. Dentists are nother case entirley, and I wouldn't care to comment.



Back on topic this is directed to Stephen Sutherland; where exactly are you located?. Your side panel indicates you're in England but you use terms that are not consistent with a UK exam board.

Well, it depends on the schedule. If there're many people squeezed into the day, the examiner probably won't have the patience to wait for the latecomer. However, some more pleasant examiners like the one I had for grade 8 piano waited for my friend to arrive, and she didn't complain much about it.

All in all, it's the steward's and examiner's discretion whether or not to accept a candidate who's late.

That's a shame, that they would not consider it.

At the end of the day I think stewards and examiners should accomodate where possible, especially if others are willing to swap, but as rai says,

...and if they decide not to, it's their decision. & not their fault if someone turns up effectively 25 minutes late.

I have been impressed with the precision with which ABRSM issue time slots. I always find it a bit amusing to receive an exam time eg 10.14am. On at least 2 occasions my daughter has gone in very early to her exam when previous candadate hasn't turned up. I always arrive allowing far more than 10 minutes in advance so that if she has to go in early, can still have time to warm up. One occasion she went in early was useful as we had unfortuately received the same date for exams in 2 instruments 2 hours apart in 2 centres approximately 40 mins drive away from each other (problem when different teachers use different exam centres). I'd made sure I had a phone number for the second centre so I could contact them if we'd been delayed in traffic, and had informed local coordinators in advance we were having to travel between 2 exam centres. If exam in first centre had been running late this could have caused difficulty in getting to the next exam.

I always allow plenty of time to get to a centre and to be able to park. I would hope that in genuine situations of difficulty that there might be some flexibility, but wouldn't expect this as a matter of course.

Some teachers might not like you knowing this but you can get them to enter you at whatever centre you prefer regardless of the on they usually use.
I think the only real problem would be if the teacher was acting as accompanist to several students in a session.

It's probably best to make a rule of telling pupils parents to aim to get them to the centre 20 minutes before the exam, just in case anything goes wrong with traffic or whatever.

While it would be nice to think that an exam centre would try and work around lateness, however, itwould be unwise to let it get around that they were at all flexible with times, otherwise lots of people would start turning up a few minutes late and chaos would reign!

Also I agree with everybody here who said it would be unfair on others to askthem to take their exam at a diiferent time than the scheduled one. No candidate really wants anything to happen that could throw their equilibrium out of balance, and most candidates are on a tight schedule themselves.

The fact that this 8-year-old had practised hard for 6 months is irrevelant here - the fact is, whoever was driving probably messed up in some way by not allowing enough time to allow for traffic, getting lost or whatever else it was that made this happen. How about the original poster filling us in on why this person was so late in the first place!

Violinia

When I took my grade 4 violin exam some of the people before me were late. The steward allowed them to enter late and then forgot about me - he just went straight onto the person who was due at the time that the candidates who arrived late finished (which was well after my exam should have finished). Eventually my teacher/accompanist asked what was happening at which stage the steward decided that rather than inconvience anyone else I could just wait until the end of the afternoon. The end result was that I ended up going into the exam over two hours after the time I had been given. As I had arrived about 20 minutes early this meant I had been sitting waiting for about two and a half hours and I was a nervous wreck. I played appallingly badly - I was shaking so much the bow was bouncing along the strings, I almost dropped the violin the first time I changed position. Not surprisingly I failed the exam (although only by three marks). My teacher successfully appealed but I was so traumatised that I refused to take another violin exam although I continued having lessons for another four years.

Not directly linked to the music other inconveniences that day were the fact that I had had permission to miss an hour's lessons (not the whole afternoon) and got into trouble at school the next day. By the time I got back to school to collect my school things I had missed my school bus home and had to walk half an hour to catch a public bus.

All this means that I am very unsympathetic to people who arrive late for exams. After all I had been working hard for six months too!

Very helpful to see this from the other side - thank you Kerioboe. What an awful experience for you!

Keriboe that sounds like a horrendous experience.

I hope anybody reading it who thinks they should be accomodated if they're effectively nearly half an hour late will take pause for thought.

Violinia