I'm a freelance accompanist, booked so far this term to accompany four candidates from four different teachers at three different centres. Over the past couple of years I've accompanied exams for ABRSM, Trinity-Guildhall and London College of Music at seven different centres so clashes are a very real possibility. The sooner we know about a clash the more likely it is that an exam can be rescheduled.

As always I'll be very grateful if people will post here to say when they get their notification and the date of the exam. Actually as the session starts in 2 weeks I hope the Week 1 people have already heard!

I haven't entered any candidates of my own for many years. I don't always know which week the teachers I'm accompanying for have asked for, or whether they made their entries by post or on line. When I do know, I can sometimes alert them to check for dates if a number of people have already reported knowing theirs for the same week. I don't completely trust either the postal service or email!

Very best wishes to all this term's candidates. Give your examiner a nice concert, and remember that NERVES ARE NORMAL!

Heard today for 23rd June. Requested a date before 29th

I've had my 2 dates - 17th and 19th.

The 19th one said any date was fine, the 17th one requested not to have the final week.

Not sure whether others have noticed this but, of my 3 different blocks of entries, in each case the appointment times came through very promptly on line (though in 2 cases without an email to alert me to look) at the beginning of the date period the ABRSM had quoted for releasing that block of exam dates. The postal notification arrived about 4-5 days later.

If you can remember when you got the notification I would be interested to know how much notice people get for Week 1. I'm impressed that the people at the beginning of Week 2 got as much as 3 weeks.

The system seems to be pretty slick now, particularly for people getting notification on line. On the other hand I hope the 4-5 day time lag that someone mentioned before getting the postal confirmation doesn't mean that people not on line are hearing so much later.

I have just received notification that my exams are on June 27th, which is 3 weeks away.

However it's two weeks earlier than the week I asked for.

this may help....


Please note:
Practical appointments are published in date order and the calendar for this term is:


Published 15/05 - 19/05 for exams 01/06 - 07/06
Published 20/05 - 22/05 for exams 08/06 - 14/06
Published 26/05 - 29/05 for exams 15/06 - 21/06
Published 01/06 - 05/06 for exams 22/06 - 28/06
Published 01/06 - 05/06 for exams 29/06 - 05/07
Published 08/06 - 12/06 for exams 06/07 - 12/07
Published 08/06 - 12/06 for exams 13/07 - 19/07

Mine are online today for 1st July (we asked for 30th June/1st July).

B x

I asked for the 7th week and have got the beginning of the 5th...

Hope it's ok with my students

I asked for week 5, and have still not heard - does that mean I may end up getting week 6 or later?

I don't mind - just wondering - it's my first ever entry, so am obviously a li'l nervous!

if you see my previous post you should have received some form of notification by now if it was in week 5

I asked for week 5, my students can't do later than that and I didn't hear!

I received online notification on Monday 1 June, postal confirmation on Wednesday 3 June, for Tuesday 16 June. Week 1, as requested. I'm amazed that some people have already heard dates for week 5!

Edit: I've just had a look at the online calendar which shows what dates you should be notified by for each week, and see that seven weeks are listed. I'm assuming that the first two weeks, starting from 1 June, are for special entries, seeing that the public centres don't open for business until 15 June. The notification for week 1 should have been 26-29 May.

The first two weeks only apply to Scotland.

Thanks owainsutton, though I was further puzzled to received my confirmation of stewarding duties with the first week marked up as week 3! We are nowhere near Scotland.

Just had notification for 10th July.

I was very pleased to get my notification by email a few days ago, haven't been sent it this way before. Exams on 1st July.

Received confirmation of exams on 8th and 9th July this Wednesday (10th June)

Notification of 6th July date showed up online on 10th June. E-mail hasn't arrived yet....

I was asked on June 11 to accompany another exam, this one T-G, on June 26. The parent had been told that the exam centre would be active for two weeks. Their regular accompanist could only do one of the weeks and would be away for the other, so they asked for the week she would be available. Lo and behold when the date came (I think June 9) it turned out that the centre would only be active for one week after all, and of course if was the "wrong" one. You lose some, you win some!

I suppose the exam boards have at least to reserve enough time at a centre to cover a predicted number of exams and I can well imagine that numbers could be down year on year at the moment.

I heard from a parent yesterday (June 12) about a child's AB exam on July 3rd, but the teacher may have known the date for a bit longer.

Heard today about an exam on July 14th. I'm hoping to be able to change it as I've got two other commitments that day that make it seriously inconvenient for me and two other people though not totally impossible.

Supplementary question:

Has anyone had a date in the final week of the session when they had asked for something earlier? I'm still waiting for one date where I was told by a parent the teacher had asked for end of June beginning of July (probably English week 3). I'm now wondering if a notification could have gone astray. I don't know if the teacher uses the on-line system.

Later edit:
That particular panic now over. Teacher emailed to say the exam is on July 2nd - don't know if she's just heard or hadn't got round to passing the information on...

Hooray! As the accompanist I've managed to arrange a change of time that works for everyone (though the traffic could be a problem as it's right at the end of the day). I rang three times over a period of a few days, and one of the nice people I spoke to assured me that they didn't mind my doing that. When I first enquired I didn't have the applicant's number but had all the other details of the original exam. Getting the number speeded up the search on the later calls. Confirmation of the change goes to the applicant. The whole thing was very user-friendly. I didn't ring until I was reasonably sure all the dates for that final week would have been notified. Thanks to everyone who helped by posting their dates.