ANALYSIS

With ABRSM Grade 5 theory a prerequisite for anyone taking the board’s Grade 6, 7 and 8 practical exams, when the pandemic hit and in-person assessments stopped, teachers and students around the world were left waiting to see if and how the ABRSM would provide an online solution.

The transition from a paper test to a web-based exam was not without issues for both pedagogues and pupils. When the online Grade 5 theory exams were piloted in August 2020, some candidates struggled to get on to the exam platform, and reports of access problems persisted into 2021. But the ABRSM has worked to iron out technical issues, improve exam guidance and video instructions, and allay concerns about candidates being filmed during their assessment. From 2 August 2021 the online theory exams have been available on demand, with teachers and students welcoming the ability to book and take an exam at any time, rather than at a fixed hour on a particular day. But some teachers still have concerns over the nature of the online assessment.

The shift to online for Grade 5 theory, and also the lower-grade theory exams down to Grade 1, was not a direct response to the pandemic, stresses Ali Bowen-Davies, the board’s deputy head of learning and qualifications. ‘Our desire to deliver an online theory test had been in transit for some years,’ she says. ‘We knew that e-assessment was the direction of travel, but when the pandemic hit we had to expedite that shift super-quickly. Our original target was to launch online exams in 2022, but we brought that forward by 18 months.’

The ABRSM partnered with specialist testing company PSI to provide the online exam platform and the proctoring, or remote invigilation, whereby the exam is filmed and reviewed to ensure that candidates adhere to exam conditions. But at their first opportunity to take the exam, some students had immediate problems accessing the system. Kirsty Body, a teacher in Cambridgeshire, UK, who specialises in intensive Grade 5 theory courses, says that all four of her students who entered the August 2020 exam spent over 30 minutes on the technical support helpline, trying to get on to the platform. ‘It was very stressful for the children and their parents,’ she says. ‘Everyone in the country was trying to get on at the same time. I know of teachers who handled the exam entries for their pupils, and who had the situation of pupils, all in different houses, not being able to get on. The only person with the login details and all the back-up support was the teacher, and so there were teachers driving house to house to help children start.

‘It’s now all drag-and-drop and clicking boxes, and the students don’t actually write anything’ – Theory tutor Kirsty Body

Although one of her students reported severe technical issues with the exam platform in March 2021, Body says the system is now much improved, which she attributes to the on-demand service removing capacity pressure. But she continues to have reservations about the nature of online assessment, specifically that candidates are no longer assessed on how they physically write music. ‘I have a problem with it all being online from Grades 1 to 5,’ she says, ‘because it’s now all drag-and-drop and clicking boxes, and the students don’t actually write anything. I make all my pupils do some of the old-style written papers, and then the new onlinestyle practice questions, but being examined in being able to write music is different from doing it with a teacher.’

In response, Bowen-Davies says: ‘We’re not taking away the skills of writing music; we’ve chosen not to assess it. We’re not saying it’s not a valid skill to teach or for learners to have, but there are better things we can assess to validate a candidate’s knowledge and understanding.’ In support of this viewpoint, Gem Fifield, a teacher of piano, singing and theory in the Cotswolds, points out: ‘None of my students write by hand when they do composition at school – they all use software. I give students written practice papers so I make sure they can write, but I don’t think presentation necessarily has to be assessed in an exam.’

Objective test questions, such as multiple choice and drag-anddrop, have other advantages, argues Bowen-Davies. ‘With the written paper, sometimes a candidate’s writing of notation was not clear, so often when marking we had to make a judgement call,’ she says. ‘And by reducing the writing and reading demand, objective test questions also make the test more accessible for people whose first language isn’t English.’

The on-demand offer saw the number of candidates taking Grade 5 theory in the four months to November 2021 overtake the number of written Grade 5 theory papers taken during the whole of 2019 (55,000 to 51,000 according to Bowen-Davies). Whether this is being fuelled by the novelty of the on-demand service or a hunger internationally for exam opportunities, it does suggest that teachers have for the most part stuck by the ABRSM and not switched boards for theory exams, or abandoned Grade 5 theory entirely. ‘Several colleagues I know have switched boards,’ says Fifield, ‘but I trusted that the ABRSM would tweak the process and it has done. There was always going to be a settling-in period.’