11 replies to this topic

[FingerTwister]

Hi all,

 

I just wondered if anyone else has ever encountered something similar - i.e. they thought they'd completed an ABRSM online exam entry for a pupil, in good time before the entry deadline etc, only to find on logging in to check if exam dates have been allocated, that that one pupil is missing from the list of candidates entered?...!

 

This does indeed appear to have happened to me, and is something I've only just discovered. Also, re-checking the email I received from the ABRSM on 19th January, acknowledging receipt of entries and my payment, I realise now that it doesn't add up to the correct amount to include this 'missing pupil' - something I know I should have double checked at the time, but unfortunately didn't, assuming it be correct (it came to rather a lot for this session, to say the least). Exam dates have not yet in fact been allocated, and the payment does not appear to have left my bank account.

 

I'm 99.9% sure I did include this one Grade 3 piano pupil with another seven entries for their various grades, especially as I know her mother was the first to give me the exam fee, and I'm also fairly sure I even remember typing her name on the online form, as it is quite unusual. I also remember delaying sending the entry straight away as I was waiting to see if another pupil would likely be ready in time to take her Grade 1, so I typed the details in for all those I was confident of - including this Grade 3 pupil or so I thought - and saved them to send later, pending the Grade 1 entry, who in the event I didn't add to the saved list. When I did send the final entries, I was fairly confident the Grade 3 pupil in question was still there.

 

So, I'm really not sure how this has come about or what to do about it at present. I think I'll have to try phoning the ABRSM in the morning, but I know just getting through will be an ordeal in itself, and I don't know if there's any way they can check the original entry I made, to see if this 'missing pupil' was included on it. If it transpires they have no record of her being put in for the forthcoming session, I can't really see a way around it, other than to refund the exam fee to the mother. But I won't really know what to say to her or my young pupil, as she has been working on her pieces for the best part of a year (one of them longer than that) as it is last year's syllabus, and it means she will now have missed the opportunity to take Grade 3 with those pieces!

 

Admittedly, she did play the first of them that she'd learnt ('Attitude') in a local music festival earlier last year, doing pretty well with it by getting 2nd place in her class, and she is due to play another one of them ('German Dance') in a similar festival this year - so not a complete waste of effort - but I know she will still be very disappointed if she has to start learning a whole new set of Grade 3 pieces from scratch... as will I.

 

Just feeling ever so slightly sick over this at the moment...

 

Any advice, suggestions, or the name of a really good gin would be very gratefully received in this instance!

[Latin pianist]

Hope you sort it with abrsm. If you don't, if you could find a fairly local Special Visit, the entries don't go in until 28 days before it so as long as it was into March it would be ok. Maybe there are local schools that have one.

[jo.clarinet]

The AB people are usually very helpful - just phone or email them today and explain. I'm pretty sure there won't be a problem - a Grade 3 piano exam is only about 12 minutes long, so it should be quite easy for them to slot in somewhere, even if it means that this candidate might end up taking it on a different date and/or centre to your others. 

[Sautillé]

Sometimes they can be very helpful and they will accommodate a late entry. It is also possible to get an extension to the syllabus pieces - I once had one for a child who was injured in the overlap period, don’t know about this case though.... good luck!

[agricola]

I've made this mistake once when I had three candidates with similar names beginning with the same letter and I was holding fire on two of them to make sure they were ready.  Luckily the one I thought I had entered and hadn't was very borderline so no great harm was done.  I didn't discover my mistake until it was far too late to correct so abject apologies followed.  Since then I have double-checked my entries obsessively!

[Hedgehog]

Hands up all those who rushed over to the exam booking link to check their entries!!   To the OP 

[Sautillé]

Hands up all those who rushed over to the exam booking link to check their entries!! piano.gif To the OP goodLuck.

‘Me’

[FingerTwister]

Thank you everyone for your replies!

 

I did manage to get through to ABRSM relatively quickly yesterday (3rd attempt after nobody answered the phone the first couple of times) and explained the situation, but all they could suggest was that I will need to find a local school or other centre/private tutor hosting a special visit, and plead with them to add my pupil to their submissions for March. Unfortunately there isn't a local rep for my area any more and no-one at the exam centre I use was able to help.

 

I've tried phoning and emailing several schools/heads of music already and am waiting to hear back from three of those (not sure how long to give them before writing them off) plus a couple of other private teachers I know to help spread the word around, but nothing positive so far. There's a few others I can try, so I won't give up hope yet!

[jo.clarinet]

If you're on Facebook and are in a group for your town/local area, why not put up a message there too? I'd help you out myself, as I'll be having a (non-special) visit in late March, but I'm in London - much too far for your candidate....

[Jlma]

- so not a complete waste of effort - but I know she will still be very disappointed if she has to start learning a whole new set of Grade 3 pieces from scratch... as will I.

 

 

 

 

Why would you not move her onto grade 4 straight away then, as long as you are confident she would have safely passed either way? Learning more than the 3 exam pieces "needed" is never a "waste" in my opinion. In fact, I try to get all my pupils to learn more than just the next three pieces, whether it's additional exam pieces or pieces not on the syllabus. As long as the pupil is ready for the grade entered, she doesn't have to have taken all the lower grade exams. 

But even so, I hope she can take the exam of course and I do realise this is still worrying for you! Good luck.

[FingerTwister]

Good news!

 

One of the people I contacted has put me in touch with another local teacher who is hosting a special visit at her house on 8th April. I didn't find out until yesterday whether it would be possible for her to fit my pupil in as well, but she can... so major crisis averted.

 

If it had come to it I'd have been thinking along the same lines as Jima - to suggest moving this student on without taking the exam, but it's always uncertain how some students and their families would respond, when they've already been working towards a specific goal, only then to be told it's not going to happen. So I'm just very relieved.

 

Local schools had not been able to help, so it definitely pays to have contact with other private teachers in these sorts of situations. Rest assured, however, I'll be doing my utmost to make sure this doesn't happen again!

[Maizie]

So glad you got a result

Rest assured, this will almost certainly never happen to you again; and if it does, it won't be in the next decade.  Your double-checking will be far too good