My daughter is now 25, so this is a bit out of date, but she did A-level Latin in our local comprehensive school in a class of two, having done GCSE earlier. I think it depends on the expertise of the teachers which languages are offered, and if you happen to have a classics specialist, they may as well teach it along with their second subject. The state school where I work still offers GCSE Latin, but it's extra-curricular and parents have to pay (only about £3 per hour though, so it's cheaper than instrumental lessons).

My son also got a good enough grade overall to take up his place at the conservatoire, thankfully, but it was a bit of a blow to his confidence. The remark we asked for seemed to be a bit of a farce. It was supposed to be independent, but consisted of the original mark sheet with additional comments added by a second marker, all entirely in agreement with the first, and coming out at exactly the same mark. You could say he may have had an off day, but I accompanied him and I know he played really well.

The next stage was an appeal, but the only appeal possible was against 'procedure' not the actual marking, and was expensive so we didn't go down that route.

The outcome was that he got at least a grade lower then he should have done, but as he got what he needed we let it lie.

In our case the examiners were clearly not jazz specialists and had no idea how to deal with someone playing jazz at an advanced level. Since this happened I have heard of several similar cases, so I think it should be regarded as an issue that needs addressing

I would imagine that Jazz is difficult to mark, which is all the more reason why the examiner should know what he or she is doing.

One of the reasons given for not examining our son on the organ was that the teacher was not herself an organist, so she could not be expected to see what was being played on three 'keyboards' (her words) and pedals all at the same time.

These people are being paid to make judgements that could have lifelong implications for paying canditates, so surely it is not asking too much that they know what they are examining?

SB

What a ridiculous reason. By the same reasoning you could imagine having a teacher who knows how to play the recorder insisting that saxophonists play on a recorder as the fingering is similar.

Quite. But the Head of Music also failed to grasp (or at least admit) that playing an organ was very different to playing a piano. In short, she seemed to think that if a piece of music could be played on an organ it could just as easily be played on a piano or electronic keyboard because (and I quote) “the keyboard is the same”.

I think what this boils down to is that GCSE examiners only need to see the right notes played at the right time, and in a purely mechanical fashion. Expression doesn't matter, and any attempt to ornament the piece is frowned upon, no matter how well this is executed.

SB

Its seems its a bit like the AB sight reading tests - I often found the piano ones harmonically a bit odd, and i had to try quite hard not to correct them on the fly (my brain would go - that chord in the left hand is silly - play this one instead it will sound much nicer)

What a wonderful brain to have! Mine is so busy trying to sightread that all thought of chords flies out of it!

I guess I must be somewhere in between. I definitely found that the sightreading pieces always had my 'you've played a wrong note' alarm bells ringing when I'd be playing all the right notes. I found it quite hard to keep going when my head was telling me it was all wrong but the page was saying otherwise. I wouldn't automatically be able to find the 'right' notes though.