Hi all,

I was just wondering what's your take on this?

Scenario : It's Monday morning and student sits for theory exam. After half an hour or so, she attempts the General Questions and finds that she doesn't know the answer to an Italian term. She discreetly text messages her teacher X for an answer. Teacher X did not have her Italian terms book at hand (!!) and decides to call up another teacher for the answer. Five minutes later,answer was given to student via text message.

I came to know about this from a friend who was there to witness this. Is it just me, or does this teacher lack the proper ethics? Some may blame it on the invigilators for allowing this to happen. But I strongly feel that even when there is opportunity to cheat,one should not condone it. However, from some student/parents point of view, it's fine to do it because it's the outcome that matters ( they're now a step away from a failure). So,my question here is this : Do you think it's right for a teacher to go this far to ensure her students passes her exam?

I'm not sure if I'm more horrified that the teacher didn't know the Italian term, or that she aided in cheating.

I think that's shocking ! If one of my pupils texted me for an answer during their exam I would firstly not reply, and secondly feel deeply disappointed in them for doing such a thing at all.................

I would text back telling the student: 'I am sure I am dreaming of this as if it was real I'd report you to the examiner!!'
wonder is he/she would be texting back 'no, you're not dreaming, it's real!!!'

I'm shocked too, and rather sad that anyone could think for a moment that this is ok.

Firstly, I thought phones were banned from exams. If they aren't, they should be.

Secondly, this is cheating, it should result in the candidate being disqualified from the exam, possibly any further exams, and the teacher's conduct being investigated by whichever body is reponsible. And possibly being barred from entering any more pupils in future.

The exam is to test the pupil's knowledge of music theory, not the teachers knowledge (or lack of it in this case) and not to use technology to get an unrealistic result.

this is no better than smuggling the answers into the exam. If a pupil did this to me I would have to look seriously at dropping them. Apart from that, not knowing one Italian term ws hardly going to fail them the exam, so there must have been a far bigger problem afoot which no amount of texts would have fixed.

No Plain and simple. You do an exam on your own, that's that.

I would ask if Teacher X knew that the question was coming from a pupil during an exam - after all, if unaware that an exam was going on, could have just been an enthusiastic student wanting to learn

It's definitely wrong. If a person cheats like that they could grow up to be the sort of teacher that doesn't know their Italian terms!

Presumably the teacher used to cheat in her exams too so regards it as OK.

I'd ignore the text then show the message to parents, presuming this is a child! Definately wrong........

This is shocking I told my pupils recently that they're not even allowed to take in a pencil or ruler with a piano keyboard printed on them as it's now against the rules. It's when things like this occur that I really feel there should be more regulations in place for private music teachers (see other post on grade 5 piano in a year).

A child texting a teacher is bad (but kind of understandable if they smuggled the phone in), but the teacher replying is just horrendous! Maybe ABRSM should get tougher and ban people from entering their exams if something like this is proved, it would be difficult to carry on privately teaching if you couldn't use the AB.

By the way, once I had a special needs pupil take grade 3 piano - just before she went in I noticed that she'd written all of her scale key-signatures on her hand in pen!! I rushed her into the bathroom and scrubbed it off

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Quite.

I do not condone cheating in any tests. However I am surprised teacher x had not instilled into candidate a the importance of knowing your italian terms. How many theory teachers out there would not emphasise this as part of exam prep. Also if I was teacher x, I would contact the board and get the paper voided. Cruel, but a salutory lesson candidate a needs to learn the hard way.

I can well imagine the embarassment and awkwardness that might be caused, but if I was aware that this was going on, I would feel compelled to alert the invigilator.

My candidates work very hard for their theory exams and are rightly proud of their (so far unbroken) record of distinctions (OK its only up to grade 3 so far, but heck, I'm chuffed!). I am disgusted to think that there are other candidates out there cheating their way to a pass or whatever and even more so that there are teachers prepared to go along with this behaviour.

Maybe (it seems unlikely I must say) the teacher really was unaware that the kid was actually in the exam - might have thought he/she was having a last minute panic before going in - I can't think of any other acceptable explanation.

What sort of moral code has been instilled into this child? Argh, fume, I don't believe it (Victor Meldrew style)

Like others, I'm hoping that the teacher didn't realise that the student was actually in the exam room at the time. It seems obvious that if mobile phones are allowed to be taken into the exam room, (which is surprising) it should be made clear that they have to be switched off. I'd like to know more about this "witness" - was it someone taking the exam? And how did they know what the message was about?

It was the other teacher who received the call from teacher X. She explained the situation.

This is shocking and totally unacceptable. The AB should be alerted - and if they haven't already banned phones they should certainly do so.

So teacher X did know it was an exam situation. I am shocked that the teacher knew this and helped her pupil to cheat. This is no way for a teacher to behave, she should be more responsible. I agree that the AB should be alerted - the pupil should certainly not be allowed to pass the exam.

I'm sure the rules say phones must be switched off and I think it says anyone infringing this will be disqualified. But if the invigilator didn't see it then what can be done at this point?

Maybe I've got this wrong....Aren't those taking Grade 5 Theory generally Grade 5 practical? If this is the case then wouldn't they have needed to know the Italian terms for their playing and Aural?

It all seems a bit odd to me! Although in this day and age it's quite probably true!

A lot of people are grade 5 practical (probably most), but you do sometimes get people who are just very interested in, or very good at, theory & are way ahead of their practical level. And you do sometimes get a fairly unusual Italian term in a theory paper, so not knowing it wouldn't mean that someone is not generally quite knowledgeable about Italian terms.

Like everyone else, I'm horrified at thie story. It seems ridiculous that they make a fuss about not taking in a pencil with a tiny picture of a keyboard, but people are taking phones in & using them.

The sheer cheek of the pupil is shocking, let alone the teacher actually sending the answer back!

It's an AB theory exam. We have it twice a year and we're somewhere in Asia Pacific.

Like everyone else I am very saddened by this story and hope the ABRSM may try to do something about finding the person who was responsible and also making strident attempts to stop this sort of cheating. However, the Centres for theory are run by volunteers and so, I guess, there is only so much they can do. Thinking about some of our local stewards (kindly, quite elderly folk), I doubt they'd feel confident to tackle a candidate texting on their phone, even if they spotted it in the first place.

It's like pupils taking theory exams in their own school - some boarding schools do that - it relies on the integrity of the teachers to make it work. There have been some examples recently of music teachers "assisting" their pupils in GCSE music listening tests - very unprofessional in my view.

The other silly thing about this is that not knowing an Italian term probably costs one mark on the paper overall. If you know your stuff otherwise you're going to get through whatever. If you are urgently in need of that one mark, then it's not looking good......

I have to say though that I find all those Italian terms for Grade V quite hard to recall myself - I always did and age makes it even harder! I know the basic ones (of course) and quite a few of the others but I am always surprised by the huge list that creeps into Grade V, half of which you'll never see on music and, if you do, you can quickly look up in a reference book. I'd say all musicians need a workable knowledge of the terms and signs up to about Grade III, but I'm less sure of the more unusual extras thereafter.

No, I don't think that is right at all.




I am frankly surprised that a phone was allowed in the exam room, and that said student was not spotted using it.

Keep in mind this was not in the UK - maybe things are different ?

..or consulting another teacher to basically say "help me help my student cheat!" (If I were the other teacher, teacher X would have got a right earful...)


Yes, I hadn't read that when I first answered. Maybe the phone was very discreet to use??

Even so...

Beats me! I'm guessing the student text messaged with the phone in his pocket! and yes, the kids here can do that!! I have absolutely no idea how!

I guess that makes sense but how he also managed to look at the reply without being spotted..?!

Alas, for playing at least, not the case: When I see an Italian term I look it up in the music dictionary which conveniently sits on top of the piano. I have no doubt that in most other ways my music theory is comfortably enough to pass grade 5 (I will be entering soon so that I can sit grade 8 piano) but the Italian terms will require some specific preparation.

As for the scenario, it's cheating, and cheating is despicable and indefensible, end of discussion. The student and BOTH teachers should be ashamed of themselves for this and if you know who they are you should inform them that if they don't own up on their own you will report them, then be prepared to do it. If you don't you are effectively condoning their behaviour.

The moderators should pick up on this thread and pass it on to the AB to investigate.

Words fail me!!!

OK not quite. When preparing someone for a theory exam, as well as covering all the other tasks in the workbook, I sit down with the student and tick off the terms and signs they already know from playing or school lessons. I then set them a certain number to learn each week, and I test them. Like everyone else's pupils here, they would not dream of texting me for help in the exam (I have given them my email address and mobile number in case they forget for example, how many sharps in A major during the week and have to learn to play the scale - and they are generally not very good at getting in touch about things like this!) Anyway, if somebody did actually dare to do this, I would ignore the message and show it to their parents, like someone else said. As for helping another teacher helping their student cheat, there's no way I'd get involved. Cheating is cheating, and it's so unfair on those who pass through sheer hard work.