I have a grade 7 pupil whom I originally said to her that she could take the exam this term, closing date end of this week.
I am now having doubts as to whether she will be ready. She is quite a new student for me and perhaps I over estimated her progress. She does practise but I feel her intonation isn't quite good enough for this standard yet. I am nervous about telling her because I know she wants to take the exam. We had planned on Grade 8 by next Summer because of going off to university, hence the rush but does it really matter in the end? She is not taking music at A level and doesn't play the piano so I know the ear tests will take a bit longer to prepare for and I am taking that into account.
I just thought to have Grade 8 under her belt would be a real achievement, now I am wondereing whether a better mark for Grade 7 would be more advantageous.

What do you think?

Katie

I understand how you feel about this,because this happens a lot to me.Pupils gain their Grade 7 or 8 and then we run out of time because of Uni,and then they can't sit their Grade 8 or Diploma.

Even if she sat G7 in Dec I would have thought it would be pushing it to aim for G8 in July 06. As it's only the Aurals you are uncertain about,would it be beneficial for her to have extra aural training or aim for March. In the meantime,you could press on and introduce her slowly onto the G8 syllabus?

Just a thought, may be insane, depends on the pupil, but would leaving out the grade 7 exam give you enough time to work on her weaknesses to get her all around to grade 8 standard to take that at the latest possible opportunity? Just a thought; there seems little point doing either exam if she's not up to the standard required. If you think the best that's possible is a good mark at grade 7 then perhaps you could just work until the last possible opportunity and do grade 7 then (on other things not just exam preparation). I personally value good marks at grade 7 more than a low pass at grade 8 anyway, the former is probably more difficult (well I don't really know about the violin in this one, I have to confess...).

You get more UCAS points for a distinction at Grade 7 than a pass at Grade 8.

I thought you did...

I think I'd be more impressed with 130-odd at grade 7 than 102 at grade 8... Depends why she's taking the exams in some ways I suppose... if she's keen on being able to say "I have grade 8" then she might want to go for it, but I'd think a good grade 7 would be better than a scraped grade 8.