That's an excellent result - well done to your daughter, she obviously deserves it.

Many congratulations!

Sheer hard work and talent in the face of serious adversity. Emsoboe ought to be very, very proud of what she's achieved - it's wonderful! Congratulations to her!

Thanks!

What I'd like to do now is get her removed from the Gifted and Talented list so school don't get the funding. They are very unlikely to provide anything for her seems they haven't so far. I expect it just isn't worth the stress though.

Onwards and upwards!

I don't know what part of the country you are in, but in the schools I have taught in (West and East Sussex), there is no additional funding for gifted and talented students. The G&T register is important and schools have a responsibility to extend and challenge these children - often through extra day courses run through the county, but there is certainly no extra funding just because a child is on the gifted and talented register.

Most schools will allocate a certain amount of their overall budget towards G&T but it is totally up to the individual school (headteacher/governors).

I had a conversation with the G&T co-ordinator at the LEA to try and establish if there were any guidelines to cover what schools did in the circumstances my daughter found herself in. From what they said I think the schools are responsible for provision but got the impression there was some funding for it. When my daughter was put on the list for music the teacher did say at the time "more money for me" (I assume meaning the department). Perhaps I have misunderstood.

I don't really think there is much I can do about it. The list is pretty meaningless as there is little or no provision.

You mean they aren't going to send her to the RNCH, with whom they work closely? (I would have assumed from that that they meant her to do work experience by playing for the patients, or something! I Googled it and the RNCH is apparently the "Rancher Energy Corporation" )

I think the she's done amazingly well and thoroughly deserves her result. Congrats to Emsoboe on getting her A*.
I think only one of the 16 students at my school got an A* this year in Music, although they all got A*-C grades and they are all in Year 11 with a teacher who knows what he's doing and has been teaching GCSE (and AS and A2) Music for over twenty-five years. (We had 99% "5 A*-C GCSEs" this year as only one student out of 127 got a D in English, and 100% 5A*-Cs last year, if that helps for comparison). It's been hugely stressful for both of you and I think that she's done brilliantly.

Thanks!! The only thing I can imagine that would have been worse would have been her doing it normally over two years as an option. The only thing the school conceeded might have been a mistake, they claim in the future they will make sure the students are suitable to fast track.

The teacher is now being paid for a full week with no year 10 or year 11 music group. I think that along with the general quality of music provision should be a strong enough indicator of where the real problem is. If they ask her she will say no one is interested. When you shout at year 7's on their first day for not lining up in the correct place, it's not exactly going to make them want to take your subject is it?

How do the year 7 pupils know where the correct place is? This teacher must think they are mind readers...

Well done Emsoboe,
Bev

The difficulty with year 7s is that they wander round in enormous herds of 30-odd students, and they don't really tend to think about anything practical, which makes them a bit of a nightmare when you (and the ten Y13 students who are meant to be in your lesson) are trying to get past the herd of Y7s who all insist on standing in the middle of the corridor looking lost. By the time I've stopped to say "Y7, can you all look this way and listen please?", got their attention and got them to line up next to the wall, for three classes-worth (no idea where their actual teachers were, the Y7s were probably outside the wrong room ) then I'm starting to get a bit irritated and I will be cross and sarcastic with the annoying child in the third group who pipes up "but you're not our teacher, Miss" - no, I'm not, but surely it's not THAT difficult to work out that standing in huge groups in the middle of a narrow corridor is not the most useful thing to do when there are other students trying to get past? (Plan B is for me to let the well-over-six-feet-tall Y13 boys trample you... )

Not the same problem as the Music Department is in a seperate block.

Excellent result - well done. Your daughter should be congratulated.

I have read through this thread with a great deal of personal interest, and I can fully understand your feelings. It seems to me that music teachers in particular are afraid of pupils with any kind of musical ability. Private music tuition outside of school is also a big no no, and they seem to think they have to constantly level the playing field in favour of those who are less focused on the subject.

Our own son was sent to the head teacher for playing Bach in a music lesson (in Y9) when he should have been learning how to play basic chords on the keyboard. He is now in his second year of GCSE, but last year was marked down in his practical for adding ornaments that did not appear on the original score. He was also made to play this on a piano, (not his first choice of instrument) because the teacher refused to travel outside of the school on grounds of health and safety, and said that it wouldn’t be fair on the less able pupils.

This is a subject which rarely seems to get into the news, (I suppose there is so much concern about pupils leaving school not being able to read or write), but I feel it needs to be exposed, and those concerned held to account. As things stand, only those pupils lucky enough to attend private schools stand a reasonable chance of learning to play a musical instrument properly, which is something this present government in particular should be thoroughly ashamed of.

SB

We weren't told that adding Ornamentation wasn't allowed either. I was very angry that the teacher hadn't done so. It was only luck that Emsoboe decided upon a modern Recorder piece for her solo.

The teacher commented on aspects of it when looking at the score at the performance. She wasn't told it was a Grade 6 piece. Daughter went for something she was really comfortable with, and had rehearsed previously, for a performance with her Piano Teacher.

One of the reasons I couldn't get anywhere with the complaint was that no one had complained before.

Look - the girl got an A*, despite this teacher. Good for her etc - but would it not be better all round, for your own sanity if nothing else, just to let this go now, however hard this might be ? As sagas go, this one seems to have well and truly run its course.

I'm definately not fighting it anymore. Not because I think it isn't worth the effort but it's not going to change anything.

I think it's hard for teachers to discover there are weak ones in their midst. Whilst it's over for us there are people out there who won't have the support we were able to access. Some members of the forum have children in a similar situation.

Yes it's over and it won't come back in another guise.

This is a bit of a sweeping statement. My children are at a state school which has excellent facilities, excellent staff, numerous opportunities to play in groups and many performing opportunities.
They no longer have instrument lessons in school. But I know many children who have got to Grade 8 entirely within the state school system.
My daughter has a deal going with the staff where she is allowed to go to a practice room if the lesson is not suitable for her. Your son's teachers really need to have a strategy for dealing with a wide ability group.
Dora

That's ridiculous! Why shouldn't you be allowed to ornament?!? If anything, you should get higher marks if you do. What would happen if you did ornament bits?

We were told that the teacher (Head of Music) regarded trills and ornaments as 'showing off', and that it was unfair to those students who were not as experienced, and did not have the benefit of private music tuition.

She also said that she was expected to mark down students for playing wrong notes, so she feels it is only fair to penalise students for adding notes that do not appear on the score. However, the idea that baroque music is usually played with such ornaments seemed to be completely lost on her.

Regarding the comment about state vs public schools, I agree that many state school pupils do indeed flourish at music; but the provision and quality of music teaching in these schools seems to be entirely at the discretion of the Head Teacher.

SB

From what I've heard of it from various people, I'm very glad I decided not to do music GCSE!

That is a ridiculous situation. Can you imagine an English teacher penalising a student for using certain words in an essay if their vocabulary was rather more advanced than the vocabularies of their peers?

My A level French teacher did

Unfortunately there are some incompetent nitwits out there teaching in schools, as well as the competent and caring teachers. I'm pleased that, for the most part, I've always worked with some inspiring teachers. Perhaps I've been lucky.

I was talking to a music teacher of a neighbouring school, and the rules are certainly on the board they use, that you are not allowed to ornament. To get the highest mark possible you have to play exactly what is written on the score. It does actually make sense if you think about it. The thing that is wrong is not actually advising pupils before they do their performances.

Exactly. The Head of Music was very well aware that our son is a keen organist, who regularly plays for several local churches. Trills and ornaments are used as a matter of course in church music , especialy when filling time, so it almost becomes second nature.

The fact that she refused to let him play his practical on the organ just made matters worse.

SB

I still don't see how it makes sense. Why would you want to blandly do exactly what the score says? If you did that in a grade exam, you wouldn't get a good mark. Is rubato banned when not specifically written and ,if the pedal isn't strictly notated the whole way through a piano piece, are you not allowed to use it? Are violinists not allowed to use vibrato? There are things that aren't necessarily written on the score that are are expected when it's performed. Ornamentation of baroque and older pieces is one of them.

You wouldn't, but then we are thinking as musicians. From what I can see, GCSE Music has little to do with music or musicianship.

SB

The more I hear about GCSE music, the more I'm inclined to agree with you...

Ditto

I agree that many state school pupils do indeed flourish at music; but the provision and quality of music teaching in these schools seems to be entirely at the discretion of the Head Teacher.

I also feel that [state] school music lessons are often coloured by political correctness and even political ideology rather more than most other subjects.

As an example, our children attend a school which has Language College status. Some of the greatest choral works are sung in Latin, but the Head of Music refuses to teach about, or perform these, saying that Latin is elitist, and doesn't belong in a modem school. Yet the children are expected to learn about, and perform Asian music?

Similarly, our children have the opportunity to learn Urdu or Mandarin at the school, but not Latin. We are told that Latin is dead, but or daughter wants to study medicine, where some knowledge of Latin is essential.

SB

I can't say that I agree with it particularly.

I think what you have to consider is the people doing the marking of the GCSE Music. Examiners for ABRSM and similar have training, they are proactive musicians with a broad understanding of music and probably highly skilled in their field. They also have to go through a selection process. Still there are many discussions about AB exminersincluding their lacking understanding of certain instruments.

School music teachers on the other hand will vary wildly in their abilities, experiences and expertees. They will have had little or no training in being an examiner. They can be in post long after they have given up playing themselves and some will have lost interest in the subject. It will be less difficult for those who have a music degree and PGCE than those who have a degree and specialised in music later.

I don't know about all boards for GCSE. The one my daughter did the class teacher marked the solos and ensembles. I guess the pupils are expected to stick to the score to simplify things for the Teacher and Moderator (in some cases). It's more a case of thinking GCSE than Music Exam for the candidate.

The pupils could get marks for not doing ornamentation as they would have plenty to identify as improvements when writing the appraisal of their performance.

I'm getting fed up with hearing that things are elitist, as if that is a bad thing.
No-one complains that only the elite play for the England football team, or represent the country in the Olympics.
Snobbery is a bad thing, but elitism surely means striving to produce the best in whatever endeavour.

Chris

This 'new order' also means that children miss out on all forms of 'classical' education, so when they are faced with a Latin phrase, or perhaps a quote from Shakespeare they will feel inadequate.

Latin is still taught at public schools, but at very few state schools; which puts pupils from the latter at an immediate disadvantage at university or in the workplace. Surely this is exactly the opposite of what we should be striving to achieve?

SB

<<As an example, our children attend a school which has Language College status. Some of the greatest choral works are sung in Latin, but the Head of Music refuses to teach about, or perform these, saying that Latin is elitist, and doesn't belong in a modem school. Yet the children are expected to learn about, and perform Asian music? >>

There should be no place for people like this in a serious education system.

The nasty little twerp should be sacked.

The (usually calm but now angry) Elephant

A knowledge of Latin is clearly helpful in a medical career, and very many scientific terms come from Greek. I love Latin and would recommend it to anyone. I must declare a family interest as my father taught Classics and was my teacher. I am shocked that a school with special status for languages won't offer it and thinks it's elitist. HOWEVER, it's not "essential" for medicine. A good school friend of mine at our comprehensive school went off to university to study medicine 30 years ago knowing not a word of Latin. It has not stopped her becoming a successful GP, and I am sure there have been many successful, but classically ignorant (more's the shame!) medical students since then.

Well done notmusimum, after all you've been through, for being the voice of common sense here. I agree. GCSEs in general can be v frustrating for the more able, but if you want the top grade you need to tick all the right boxes (quite literally in some cases).

Good advice I was given earlier this year on another thread was to read the syllabus carefully; we had to have things start to go wrong before we asked for hep and got this advice. You evidently now know the GCSE syllabus backwards.

Yes - when your vocabulary is wider than the teacher's and you're in a mixed ability class ('base group') where everyone else is after D/E/F/G grades. Strangely enough the highest mark I ever got from that teacher was a C+ and the lowest I ever got from teachers in the option groups was an A-. (We had a system where most of the course was taught in mixed ability base groups but there were four points in the course where you could choose between different options and were put in a different class according to which option you choose. I always managed to find out who was teaching the different options and chose accordingly. )

My base teacher refused to have me in the class in the final term after I queried whether we had enough coursework to meet the exam boards criteria for the English Language part of the course. The week before all the coursework was sent off everyone had to do spreadsheets of the criteria and how they'd met them. Guess what - no-one in my base group had met the requirements for English language (although everyone else in all the other groups had) and they all had to be pulled out of other lessons to write more English coursework. I had enough coursework, but only because I'd filled in the gaps during the month I was out of the class and the deputy head of department had marked what I did. The teacher still wouldn't admit that she'd been wrong and that she'd treated me unfairly...

Weak misguided school teachers are never ever wrong Flossie.




I'm far from an authority and we discoverd a lot of what we should have known in retrospect. In some ways I feel more let down by the lack of guidance than anything else.

My daughter was very lucky to get advice from various Forumites who did know what they were about. The CPG and Rhinegold books were invaluable.

The other advice i would give to anyone in a similar situation is to read the examiners report. Picking your way thorough it you can see what's not happening and make sure you get things right. It gives good clues about presentation, expectation and general standards required. I was amazed some schools actually submit marks but can't present the work to the moderator if required.....

Ha ha, you can study Latin over here in East Asia...at Japan's top music university! (And Korean, but for some reason not Chinese as far as I can see??).

Depends on the board. The board I did for GCSE and am now doing for A2 I feel complimented the work I was doing in my instrumental lessons and ensembles. There isn't the detail that some people feel there ought to bein GCSE, but it gives a person a sound base of musical knowledge in a variety of styles. As far as performance goes, I know I wasn't penalised for using ornamentation that wasn't written on the score, and composition wise- mine didn't have a complex melody (pavane and galliard), so I scored it for 2 trebles and a tenor recorder, but it was appropriate to the style so it scored full marks. So in my eyes, the GCSE course allowed me to experiment with these styles and develop my theory to about grade 3. I don't think musicianship is something which can be ultimately taught, the basics can be introduced, but if someone is not naturally musical, they are extremely unlikely to reach high standards in practical and academic music.

To say it's not about music is harsh. It is, it's gcse MUSIC. you have to analyse music, write music, learn about styles and compose in a style, and perform to an foundation/intermediate standard on an instrument. Just because they don't have to write chorals and symphonies or perform sonatas, doesn't mean that it isn't music.

However having followed this thread I can sympathise and congratulate Emsoboe and I realise that there are some awful teachers out there and some weird requirements for some boards, but it does contain music and I believe it gives a good grounding for further musical study.

sorry for the rant *gets back in box*

Thank you!

I think you make some valid points about GCSE Music being useful for further study. I would agree that the skills learnt can be transferred. I expect how useful it is depends on where you are in your musical journey. I do think there should be more openness about the exact criteria required for the performance element as early in the course as possible.

I agree with much of what you are saying, especially your point about GCSE being a useful platform from which to learn about music. However, my point was that trills and ornamentation are an essential part of baroque music, therefore I feel it is unfair to penalise a young musician for his musicianship in adding these ornamnents when it was abundantly clear to the teacher/examiner that he knew exactly what he was doing and why.

In my view it would have been much better if he had been told beforehand that ornaments were not allowed, or if he had been asked to play the peice again without ornaments.

Another interesting comment (criticism) from the music department was that our son does not drape himself on the piano keyboard like other piano students, but sits very upright. This they considered a weakness, (they didn't think he wasn't 'feeling' the music properly). They did not realise (until I told them) that organists do not play in this way, as it interferes with the use of the pedalboard, and becomes very difficult when using three or four manuals.

SB

Though interestingly Latin was reported to be making a comeback in state schools a couple of years ago.
Guardian article here

Also surely the only reason Latin is considered elitist is because it was only taught to those in private schools. I would have thought that refusing to teach it in state schools is actually condoning and reinforcing the elitism. If more state schools taught it, making it available to anyone to learn, then it wouldn't be elitist anymore! Does that make sense?

Anyway glad Emsoboe passed so well. Hopefully she can put all this behind her and concentrate on her other subjects and instrumental lessons now with a lot less stress!

I'm sure you're right that this is the perception, although I went to a state school and did A Level Latin. I can't remember how many of us did O Level Latin, but I do remember that only two of us did A Level. I can't see it happening these days that a teacher would be allocated to a class of only two, and with hindsight, I'm surprised it was allowed then because it does seem a bit wasteful. But nevertheless, I'm glad I did it. Knowing Latin made it much easier to write good English. Although how many people think good English is important these days anyway

I find some of the stories about school teaching in this thread quite shocking, if that doesn't sound too OTT. It's quite difficult not to despair about our education system sometimes...

But congratulations to emsoboe all the same - what a great achievement!

I took Further Maths in a class of three (in the 1990s)

I now teach A level maths and further maths. Because of the sheer number of different maths A level modules that my school offers, and the fact that I'm willing to give up 2-3 hours of my own time either in my free periods (I think I'm meant to get 8 free periods = about 4 hours a week) or after school, my timetable includes this lot (January exams, after which they'll pick up a different module - or June for the M3 and D2):
Y13 Further Maths AS level - group of 6, doing D1
Y12 Further Maths - group of 4, doing FP1
Y13 Further Maths A2 level - group of 2, doing D2
Y13 Further Maths A2 level - different group of 3, doing M3

in addition to the normal A level groups:
Y12 AS level - group of 16, doing C1
Y13 A2 level - group of 5, doing S2
Y13 A2 level - group of 12 (I think? 13? maybe?), doing M2

(I also have a Y9, a Y10 and a Y11 group as well)

You need 6 maths modules to make an A level, and over the last five years I've taught (umm... C1, C2, C3, C4, M1, M2, M3, D1, D2, S1, S2, bits of S3, FP1, FP2, FP3) fifteen of them. Most of the more arcane/very Further-Mathsy ones (D2, S3, M3, FP2, FP3) have been entirely in my (and the students') free time, and there are usually only 2-3 students taking these in any year. And that doesn't mention the AEA (usually 1 student a year) or STEP (again, about 1 student a year, usually the same one as the AEA!)

I teach in a state school.

There are small groups around (last year we had 1 doing AS and 1 doing A2 music) and being taught!

(Unfortunately the extra-curricular music isn't all that well-catered for - there are about 12 students and 4 teachers in the orchestra, which includes 2 people on electronic keyboards and one boy on a rock music drum kit (what is the correct term for that? ) and there's a Y7 choir that exists from October-Christmas, but that's it! ).

That ended up being a bit long! I'm not sure that "teaching interested students who want to learn something I'm passionate about" could be described as "a bit wasteful" - I know that I would far, far rather have my (rather huge) timetable instead of crowd-controlling 32 Y8 students, half of whom have no desire to learn maths and don't have enough interests in common for me to tweak the material so that it is always at least nominally relevant to things that they care about (stuff that interests the boys doesn't usually do anything for the girls and vice versa, to take an easy "difference in interests")

Skylark, were you my fellow student in your class of two for A level Latin?!

I loved latin, although I wasn't great at it, and also took O level Greek in the sixth form. They are interesting and incredibly useful and I wouldn't be withoutn them. It's not elitist or strange to study these subjects. At my state school latin O leve was really popular because it got you out of doing PE!

Further to earlier posts about GCSE and A level music I would like to share our experience. My son got A* at Gcse music and at Alevel was an A student throughout, achieving almost full marks in performance having passed Grade 8 sax with distinction ABRSM two years earlier. In his A2 year he auditioned and was accepted at a conservatoire to study jazz. He asked to play jazz at his final A level recital as this was what he was studying at the time, and we were told the board supported all styles of music and this would be fine.
Together with his jazz teacher he put together a well thought out program and performed it well. However he was only awarded a D in this.

We asked to see the marksheet and the comments were laughable; the examiner knew nothing about jazz and referred to his improvised solos as 'showing off'! A remark was done but his grade remained the same.

My point is, its great to encourage all styles of music, but rather pointless if the markers know nothing about it!
Incidentally, he is now entering his third and final year and doing rather well! Those who know about jazz are, and always have been nothing but complimentary about his playing.

Some of the stories on this thread are truly terrifying!
As regards Cambiata's and Julio's experiences, is there not a higher authority that can be appealed to? I know nothing about such matters, but it just seems not only unfair to hard working youngsters, but WRONG.

Hi Banjogirl, no it can't have been the same school because we didn't do Greek at my school.

ellie_the_little_elephant - that was a heartening story to read after all the tales of woe

There seems to be a common thread developing here, where students with proven musical ability are awarded consistently poor results when it comes to GCSE and A Level practicals.

One solution would be for music practicals/recitals to be heard by AB trained examiners. This would ensure a fair hearing for all.

Alternatively, would it not be possible for AB exam passes to be taken into consideration by GCSE or A Level examiners? After all, it seems ridiculous that a musician with a Grade 8 pass should be penalised at GCSE or A Level for being too ambtious, or simply for playing in an 'experienced' manner.

What is the agenda here?

SB