ABRSM's Chief Examiner Group: (Re)setting the tone

I grew up reluctantly taking piano and flute exams in an echoey church hall. I remember feeling sick with nerves as I waited my turn on cushioned wooden chairs with other equally terrified children. A shy, sincere child, I was not well suited to instrumental exams – I hated being the centre of attention, but I cared deeply about doing well and progressing as I thought I should. While another child might have happily accepted that exams were not for them (after scraping a pass thanks to any hint of musicality being entirely overrun by fear), I earnestly pushed through, enduring grade after grade until I hit the classic Grade 5 Theory roadblock. Despite the modest number of exams I must have sat to reach this point, my overriding memory of The Examiner is not specific. In my mind, they were the same severe-looking person each time, sitting at the same absurdly small desk in the same absurdly large church hall.

But I can recall one specific interaction: the opening of one of my piano pieces was particularly tricky and, despite having mastered it in lessons, my shaking fingers simply wouldn't do what I needed them to do. After one faltering attempt, I stopped, staring at the keys and hoping that the ground would swallow me up, unfamiliar piano stool and all. ‘Why don't you try that again?’ the examiner said, kindly. I tried again, and again; each time nudged to restart by the reassuring voice on the other side of the hall. On the third or fourth try, I found my stride and made it through the rest of the piece without incident, much to both my and the examiner's relief.

Kate Andrews, who has recently been appointed as one of five members of ABRSM's new Chief Examiner Group, also has a strong memory from a childhood piano exam: ‘I was five or six, and my main memory is, first of all, that I was allowed to wear my lucky leggings, which was fantastic; and second of all, that I couldn't get out of the room at the end because the door was too heavy. I remember that the examiner didn't get up to help, so I had to wait for the steward to come.’

Andrews goes on recall that, many years later, when she was working as an accompanist in a school, a young female examiner asked her whether she had ever considered examining. ‘I said no, because I'm not like an examiner; they're different from me.’ Speaking to me on Zoom, Andrews says: ‘It probably took another three years or so, but then I found that there was space for more than the people we thought were examiners, or like examiners.’

Five different experiences

ABRSM's new Chief Examiner Group, announced in full in October, has been created to solidify and exemplify this ‘space’. Chaired by Mervyn Cousins – previously deputy chief examiner – the group includes Andrew Dibb, Mark Armstrong, Zoe Booth, and Andrews. Cousins – accompanied intermittently by his cat, Colin – is also on the Zoom call. ‘ABRSM has always had leadership of examiners, and this is a new model,’ he says. ‘The group allows for an additional number of voices within the roles, and an additional number of pairs of ears. We all have shared skills, which we hope include communication and musical leadership, but we've also all got our particular foci.’ Andrews adds: ‘We've got five different personalities in the group; five different experiences.’

To illustrate this point, Andrews recalls a conversation she had with fellow member, Dibb, about the group's initial priorities. ‘My immediate thoughts were that we really needed to work on communications and relationships, and Andrew immediate said that we need standardised marking. They were such different perspectives, and both completely valid and important – they're both vital. Now we've got five people coming from different angles, hopefully we'll be able to hit all of these priorities.’ Andrews and Cousins also refer to an ‘authenticity’ that comes from being able to ‘keep one foot in’ the freelance world because four of them are only employed by ABRSM for two days a week. ‘That's really valuable for the examiner panel,’ says Andrews, ‘because we're not suddenly swept up and absorbed in ABRSM employment – we're still very much advocating for change on the basis of freelancers as well.’

Internal rumblings

The freelancers Andrews refers to are the examiners working for the board and some of the teachers using its services. In recent months, both groups have expressed discontent towards ABRSM – something which Andrews and Cousins do not deny. The most significant cause of concern has been the board's overhauled booking system and the creation of Mercato software, used by examiners to submit their reports. As Cousins points out, these changes and developments were made with the intention of improving the ABRSM experience for everybody.

However, during the May exam booking period this year, some music teachers reported waiting up to 30 hours in virtual queues, while others couldn't access the system at all. Many took to social media to share their frustrations, and MT reported on the developing situation, speaking to both teachers and ABRSM representatives to try and get to the bottom of the apparent chaos. As well as being angered by the disruption, customers were also unhappy with what they saw as a ‘flimsy’ apology from ABRSM. It transpired that the tech issues were caused by an unsuccessful update to the mapping function, which hadn't been properly tested under stress.

Roughly two weeks after this incident, Slipped Disc's Norman Lebrecht published a letter of no confidence signed by more than 70 examiners that had been sent to ABRSM's senior management. The signatories – plus an alleged 100 anonymous supporters – had apparently intended to privately communicate their lack of confidence in the exam board's ‘IT infrastructure and software’, but the letter was leaked to Lebrecht. Causing yet further relational damage, ABRSM chief executive Chris Cobb said he was ‘deeply disappointed that some of the panel have felt moved to express their concerns in this way’.

Driven by passion

Neither Andrews’ nor Cousins’ names appeared on the letter and, speaking to me now, both are quick to confirm that they were not one of the letter's anonymous supporters. ‘Things like that fundamentally happen because people really care and people are passionate about something, and they see an organisation they love not behaving in a way that they would hope it might do. Something has gone wrong, and they've not felt heard,’ says Andrews. She adds that the pandemic made it more difficult to get a ‘rounder perspective on people, personalities, and how things are’, so face-to-face examiner engagement events are now a ‘real priority’ to try and heal relationships.

‘To be clear,’ says Cousins, ‘the group structure of chief examiners was not a response to that [letter] – it was already being thought about before then. But why wouldn't we recognise that examiners weren't feeling happy at that point? We wouldn't deny that.’ I ask whether there is a way forward for ABRSM. Cousins responds firmly: ‘I think we're on the way forward.’ In practice, he and Andrews tell me, this looks like examiner engagement events, plus work behind the scenes – which has already ensured that the most recent exam booking period was ‘much more successful’. ‘This hasn't happened by accident,’ says Cousins. ABRSM has also carried out internal and external audits, with the latter due to be published soon. Although an audit was one of the demands laid out in the letter, Cousins says it wasn't a reaction to the examiners’ complaint. ‘Of course I would say that things have improved,’ he adds, ‘but I would also be absolutely honest if they hadn't.’

Striking the right note

Other developments that have been implemented to improve the customer experience (particularly during the pandemic) but have also had their teething problems include online theory exams and performance grades. Previously paper-based, Grades 1–5 Theory are now taken online, which some have argued make them inaccessible to students without laptops and/or a quiet space to take an exam. To this, Cousins says: ‘The direction of travel for the theory exams generally is to make them digital, but where digital can't be accessed, ABRSM is very keen to make sure that nobody misses out.’ Clarifying this point, an ABRSM spokesperson said: ‘Grade 1 to 5 Music Theory exams are only available online unless a candidate has specific access needs which mean they require a paper-based exam. Candidates requesting this can choose from a number of access options when they book and will need to provide supporting documentation. We will then arrange for them to take their exam with a physical, printed exam paper.’

Regarding performance grades, which are online-only exams assessed from a video recording, Andrews says that the group has been considering the tone of examiner feedback on a candidate's mark form. ‘Comments are always going to point out things that didn't go so well, because that's our job; but they should always do that in a way that's respectful,’ she says. ‘Something we're finding out about performance grades is that there's a potential for there to be less human connection because we haven't been in the room with somebody. Maybe we need to find ways to soften that experience so that the candidate gets more humanity through that, which we would usually provide in the room.’ Cousins adds: ‘Last Wednesday, we talked about the tone on the mark form being the most important thing. We aim for best practice, and we want to move forward with that. We're learning about the context in which the feedback is received.’

Despite the recent disquiet at ABRSM and the challenges ahead, both chief examiners are excited about the future. Andrews describes a ‘great buzz’ around the group and highlights its potential to make genuine change. Cousins, who has at this point been joined by Colin the cat, says: ‘We're examiners, but why are we doing examining? It's because of music and because of people. This group is a bit of a reset – we're putting our values together, and musical is one of them; openness is another. We mustn't lose sight of that when we get into the granular detail of every syllabus and digital update.’

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