Play as you go: RSL Awards Group Performance Exams

There are universal things about being a musician’, says RSL Awards’ Dan Francis. He's giving me examples of the different groups that could take their new Group Performance Exams. ‘Whether you're in a band of five students – drummer, guitarist, singer, bass player, keys player – or a group of all ukulele players or djembe drummers. You could be in a string quartet, or you could be a singer working with someone using live performance technology.’

Beginning in the early 1990s as Rockschool, RSL has since introduced qualifications in the wider contemporary arts. ‘What we already do is the traditional model of having a one-to-one instrumental lesson and then you go and take an exam. Then, we also facilitate the option of being taught in a classroom and instead of doing a GCSE or A Level, you can do one of our vocational qualifications,’ says Francis.

Demonstrating progress

The new Group Performance Exams are designed to be accessible to many more young players, and to be flexible while still offering young musicians a clear sense of where they are and how they can progress. The first two types of assessment will be available this academic year; at RQF levels E1–3 they will be teacher-assessed and externally moderated, and at RQF levels L1–3 they'll be assessed by one of RSL's examiner panels. The latter can be either a live exam visit or a recorded submission.

RSL has already piloted the early-level, teacher-assessed Group Performance Exams with Croydon Music and Arts. ‘We were very keen to work with a music service’, says Francis. RSL recognises the range of settings in which younger players are engaging with music education and wants this to be reflected in the way the Group Performance Exams work.

‘There are non-specialist primary teachers who need guidance in that direction, and we're also aware that there are some really skilled instrumental teachers who need support when they're working in a small or larger group environment, and they need to be able to demonstrate to the student and the parent that the student has made tangible, measurable progress. Demonstrating progress is a key part of the National Plan for Music Education’.

Teachers at the E1–3 level already have the assessment skills, and RSL aims to provide the framework to apply them when measuring musical progress, even at the very earliest levels. ‘We know that teachers are really good in a group context at telling children what they've achieved and what they need to do next to get better,’ says Francis. ‘We wanted to create a framework to enable teachers to assess how well the students have done, which is moderated, and results in a Group Performance grade at pre-Grade 1, for example.’

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Not ‘an exam’

The assessment criteria will be based on technical control, interpretation, and communication – the universal aspects of musicianship that players should be working on at any stage and in any genre. ‘There are some good pedagogical aspirations in the Model Music Curriculum, and we wanted to make sure that we could support authentic musical development in a way that was meaningful to students in the classroom,’ says Francis. ‘We didn't want to invent artificial things that they needed to do or artificial things that they needed to learn.’ He continues: ‘The critical thing is that it's not “an exam”. We're assessing the journey the students have gone on’.

Although the players are being assessed as an ensemble, each individual player will receive their own grade. Francis explains how the higher-level Group Performance Exams are designed; the same overall principles underpin the assessments, but the groups will be more defined and have fixed sizes. ‘Again, it can be any repertoire, any genre – an Indian classical music ensemble, or grime artists.’

RSL regularly seeks input from professionals in the music industry to ensure that their assessment frameworks are encouraging relevant skills. ‘We intend to use the same examiner panel as we would for graded music exams,’ says Francis. ‘We have examiners who have extensive teaching backgrounds working in environments where they deliver one-to-one tuition, who are running rock band projects, and have obviously got an understanding of going to schools and supporting learning there’.

Attractive alternative

The choice of live or recorded external assessment encourages students to hone their skills in both directions. RSL is keen to make sure their assessments reflect professional expectations. ‘We spoke to people in the creative industries, and we recognise that there are professional musicians for whom getting Grade 3 in their instrument didn't really resonate’, says Francis.

RSL hopes the Group Performance Exams will provide an attractive alternative: ‘What does resonate is being able to say, “I have this level as an individual musician performing as part of a group”. One of the biggest challenges for teachers is explaining to a student who hasn't necessarily gone through the graded music process that they can access a course at KS4 or KS5 through what they've done in the classroom.’

Music technology naturally has a large role to play, and RSL has ensured the assessment criteria can reflect this, seeking input from tech companies Ableton and Digit. The latter specialises in adaptive technology; using tech also opens up ensemble playing to many more students. ‘You could be a student with fairly significant physical needs but using adaptive technology you can create a live music performance’, says Francis. ‘Students are able to engage in the process of performing either in an adapted orchestra or with able-bodied musicians in an authentic way to create music in a style that they recognise as authentic to them.’

He continues: ‘We're assessing three things: technical control – how effectively they are using the equipment to produce the sound; how well they're interpreting the musical style that they're performing; and how well they're communicating – so their ability to work as part of an ensemble, and their ability to communicate with the audience as well.’

Gap in the market?

I ask Francis why, with ever-increasing demands on both teachers’ and pupils’ time, another type of exam is desirable. ‘First of all, in the UK, students in schools are used to knowing and want to know how well they're doing,’ he responds. ‘It's a big vehicle to help them make better progress – they know they can do this, and they know what they need to do to get to the next level. It's almost inbuilt in students.’

‘What you're doing as a teacher is helping students to become good musicians, and the exam is just a way of providing them with the reward and recognition for that. Doing the exam follows the learning – it's not the other way round. We don't want to put the assessment cart before the learning horse!’

For teachers, Francis hopes the assessments can support professional development. ‘It's about developing and sharing best practice with colleagues. Teachers can draw on the experience of the Group Performance Exams to improve their ability to identify and measure good progress from beginner level to intermediate level.’

The exams are also useful for helping to train the music education workforce, Francis says. ‘We see graduates from university ending up in situations where they're working with students who have got musical skills that they themselves don't have.’ The assessments aim to provide a framework that can bridge that gap.

The Group Performance Exams can be taken outside school contexts – after-school or evening clubs and church or charity music groups are among the settings Francis hopes will take them up. Following the rollout of the two levels of exams this academic year, RSL plans to introduce an assessment for large ensembles, where each performer will receive the same overall ensemble grade.

‘I've come from 20 years of classroom music teaching, and I've worked in exam board and music service contexts. In all those contexts, I've seen that there was clearly a need to support really tangible measures of musical progress and progression in group settings,’ says Francis. ‘People at RSL are practising musicians, working in the extracurricular and peripatetic space alongside our examiners. We've spoken to people who run exam centres across the country, people who are running music services and working in schools. We've pulled all this different insight together, and, ultimately, the aim of this is to see the exams used in as many varied music making contexts as possible.’

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