I was thinking about this after a chat with a mum who has been comparing her son's progress to that of another child a few months older. The boy has just turned 8 and has been with me for almost 2 years and is about to sit LCM Step 1. This child has made slow but steady progress since beginning lessons. He's now getting bored (understandably, some of them have been on the go since April) with the exam pieces, and over the last few weeks I've given him a couple of similar level pieces to keep him going. Mother has now heard a child who is 6 months older and who started lessons around the same time play some grade 1 pieces and is wondering why her son isn't at that level.

So I was wondering, do any of you have a list of criteria that you can show/explain to parents with regard to meeting the requirements for each grade? After they had left I thought of other things I should have said to explain why her DS isn't at Grade 1 standard, and thought it would be a good idea to have something on paper that I could just hand out to parents when I get queries like this.

At the age of 8, he really doesn't need to be at grade 1 standard, or any particular standard - all learners are different anyway - the important thing is that he is enjoying it and getting something out of it. I should disuade mum from looking sideways at other children or she'll never be happy - music isn't a competition. I roughly aim to get people to grade 8 standard by the age of 17 (one grade per year starting at 10) - grade 8 music is written for adults to play and taking it early isn't necessarily an advantage - obviously there are wide variations in ability and goals which most teachers recognise and allow for.

Yes - my first requirement would be for mum to stop making comparisons!

You raise an interesting point. The joy of individual lessons is that no-one has to compare themselves with others and we are all unique in the way we are made so that there really can be no comparison, except that certain parents don't see it that way.

Pondering on your point though, I thought about the list of 'things' you would write for someone about to do a grade 1 piano exam, and really the ideal list is quite long and demanding. I don't think that I would have a printed list that I would hand out to parents without explaining them, but I think it might be an interesting exercise to prepare such a list over the summer hols. Just doing this would prepare you for such questions in future.

I think it would make a very interesting exercise, but would take many hours! That's how so much of it is done in schools, but then they have several levels of staffing to produce these matrices for thousands of children each. To flesh out the "how to get from level A/KS1/Early level/Foundation to the next stage" there is a breakdown of all the requirements then how will we meet those. It eventually becomes a huge grid where you tick off that a child can count from 1-5, can order numbers from 1-5, can add within 1-5 using concrete objects for support, can subtract within 1-5 using concrete objects for support, can add using a number line, can add without using a number line, can subtract by counting back, can subtract by finding the difference, knows the terms "take away, minus and subtract", knows the symbol for minus, the symbol for equals, is able to write out an adding equation in the standard notation, etc. Then the same again for numbers to 10, to 20, to 100, to 1,000. And all that just to meet the eventual requirement at the end of 3 years "Child can add and subtract within 100 using a variety of methods, including formal written notation". It's then easy to show a parent why you have said the child is in this level and not that level becuase he still needs to get this skill and that skill, but that he has made progress from knowing none of those things to knowing 80% of those things, here are the specific gaps, when we have worked on those things he will be ready for this next step. I think it's hard for the parents to see any progress between grades, you are either at this point or you are not, they don't realise perhaps he is 90% of the way there.

Sometimes I think it's about explaining that a great foundation is time well spent, and that just because this one child is "ahead" right now doesn't mean that will last forever. Unless you are someone who does every single grade then you can explain there is a good chance that her son will skip a grade later, that perhaps this boy will do grade 1, grade 2, grade 3 then grade 4 and her son will do Step 1, grade 1, grade 3 grade 4, or whatever. Might be a good "in" for you to chat about practice habits too. Perhaps "that boy" is strapped to his piano day and night.

This mum has no idea how often the older child practices for or what other musical activities he is involved in, and six months can make a huge difference at a young age.

I agree that comparing two children like that is silly. It probably mostly depends on amount of practise but of course 6 months in age is a lot, plus all children develop at different rates.

However yes, I do set targets. Initially they were private and only I knew about them. When I started teaching there were so many elements I wanted to include in my lessons that weren't covered by tutor books so tracking each student's progress against each one was useful to ensure I wasn't neglecting anything.

But this term I took a new tack. Each child now has an A4 poster with a star on it, two in fact because one stays in their book bag and one is on my wall. Each point on the star represents a different element. So we have pitch; pulse and rhythm; scales and chords; dynamics and articulation; sight reading; performance; improvisation and theory. For example the first level (called Key Skills which is red) they have to show they can do a simple pentascale and broken chord pattern for C,D,E,F,G and A majors, piano or forte. Plus a mini chromatic scale. When they achieve all those things then they get a sticker to put on the "scales and chords" point on their star. The orange star is called "Initial" and the tasks for those points are related to the Trinity Initial syllabus where appropriate plus extras I've come up with, plus things that are appearing in their tutor books around that level (which for me is Piano Adventures Level 1 and 2A). I also have another couple of categories like Technique and Solfa which are not on the chart because I see them more as an ongoing exercise of continuous improvement rather than a tick list.

I'm hoping that as they complete each star they should be at the level for the exam at that level. So after Initial they should be thinking about Trinity Initial repertoire. Of course this isn't as tidy in practise. My own 5 year old son has almost completed his Key Skills Star within a few months. Meanwhile an older student who almost sat Trinity Initial back in the spring has only got one star on her Initial star. It does motivate them and they are comparing themselves to other children but I make sure each child is "the best" at something. Or at least I spin it that way. So the girl with the least amount of stickers has the sight reading sticker which no-one else her age has yet, so she feels special.

Time will tell whether it's helpful, useful or damaging!! But at the moment it's working and they come to their lesson knowing scales I never thought possible and say please can we do improv or theory!!