Inspiring musical achievement The Annual Review 2012 Enriching lives by inspiring musical achievement. The Annual Review 2012 1 ABRSM is the exam board of the Royal Schools of Music. We have been supporting and promoting the highest standards of musical assessment and learning since 1889. 2 Inspiring musical achievement Contents 03 Who we are About ABRSM 04 Chief Executive’s statement A year of growth and positivity 06 Our global reach Highlights from around the world 08 Exams and assessments Expanding horizons 12 Professional development Supporting teachers 18 Syllabuses and resources Syllabuses, digital and published materials 24 Supporting music education Donations, scholarships and sponsorship 32 Chairman’s statement The final word 34 Celebrating achievement New diploma holders Scholarships and bursaries Gold and Silver Awards New CT ABRSM holders UK and Ireland prize winners Thank you/Obituary The Annual Review 2012 3 Who we are About ABRSM ABRSM delivers over 650,000 exams As part of our commitment to every year in more than 90 countries. inspiring musical achievement we Our exams are designed to motivate provide a rich range of resources for students at all levels and ages, teachers, students and musicians. providing realistic goals and tangible In particular, we are committed rewards for achievement. to supporting teachers worldwide through high quality, innovative digital We believe that good foundations and printed resources as well as in performance and theory create through face-to-face events. rounded and confident musicians. So, we aim to encourage a love To build on more than 120 years of of music through our stimulating inspiring generations of musicians, syllabuses and objective and we work with a variety of organisations respected assessments. in the UK and around the world, providing donations, scholarships We offer exams for more than 30 and sponsorship. instruments, singing, Jazz, and ensembles, as well as Music Theory and diplomas. We also provide other assessments, such as the Prep Test, the Performance Assessment and our popular Music Medals assessments for the youngest learners. We believe that good foundations in performance and theory create rounded, confident musicians. 4 Inspiring musical achievement Chief Executive’s statement A year of growth and positivity People have always When reflecting on ABRSM’s We supported a variety of music achievements and activities during education organisations and charities been and always will be 2012 it became clear that this had been in the UK and around the world, at the heart of ABRSM a good year for us as an organisation, while continuing to offer ABRSM but not one without its challenges. scholarships, both at the Royal ... brought together Schools in the UK and the Hong Kong by music. This was a year of healthy entry Academy for Performing Arts. As ever, figures for our exams and we provided significant funding for — Leslie East, assessments. In particular, our Music the four Royal Schools of Music with Chief Executive Medals assessments continued to whom we are so closely linked. grow in popularity in the UK, while internationally we recorded our Against this growth and positivity highest number of exams taken in any we recognised that certain areas one year, and in China entries grew of our operations, particularly the by 38%. The good news was not just systems supporting our drive towards restricted to exams and assessments, administrative and customer service and over the year we sold well over excellence, needed review. We also two million books and CDs. faced an exceptional set of financial challenges. We are now in the We continued to review and refresh process of meeting these challenges our syllabuses and administrative – identifying weaknesses and ways to systems. We published new Brass eliminate them, putting plans in place and Piano syllabuses, with a host and making decisions about long term of supporting resources, and began goals and ways to achieve them. the process of revising the marking criteria for our instrumental and singing exams at Grades 1 to 8. We also launched a new user-friendly website and, for the first time, undertook research to find out what candidates and teachers think about ABRSM exams. The Annual Review 2012 5 None of this would be possible without people. People have always been and always will be at the heart of ABRSM as an organisation – from the teachers and candidates who use our exams and resources, to the examiners, representatives and staff who play such vital roles in the ABRSM success story. In the context of this review, I’d like to thank and welcome respectively two people in particular: Guy Perricone, who stepped down as Chief Executive at the very beginning of 2013, and Colette Bowe, who became our Chairman during 2012. Of course, there is one thing that brings us all together – music. And it is music that gives ABRSM its reason for existing and its mission: to inspire musical learning and achievement, participation and enjoyment. This is something that will never change. Leslie East Chief Executive 6 Inspiring musical achievement Spreading the word Our global reach We attended events Highlights from around the world and conferences hosted by a wide range of music education organisations and providers around the UK. Bringing teachers together More than 800 teachers attended our teachers’ conferences in Birmingham, London and Manchester. International trade We exhibited at many of the world’s major trade fairs, including the Frankfurt Musikmesse and Music China. Sponsorship Supporting teachers We awarded the first grants Our Centenary Travel Grant from our International fund provided scholarships Sponsorship Fund. These went for three teachers from South to inspirational organisations Africa. They spent a term in India, Jamaica, Malaysia, the studying jazz at the Royal Philippines and Uganda. Northern College of Music. The Annual Review 2012 7 New exam centres Professional development We opened new centres in China Teachers in Hong Kong, Singapore (Baoding, Dongguan and Shenzhen), and the UK took our CT ABRSM Plus India and Nepal. professional development course. In translation International growth We published more books and ABRSM exam entries in China resources in both Traditional and grew by 38%. There was a Simplified Chinese than ever before. 2.6% rise in exam entries in Our Music Theory exams are now Malaysia and we also saw a 7.2% available in 17 different languages. increase in the number of exam applicants outside the UK and Ireland, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. Celebrating success Successful diploma candidates from Hong Kong, Macau and South and East Asia celebrated at ABRSM award ceremonies in Hong Kong and Singapore. Effective teaching We ran our Teaching Music Effectively course, designed to help teachers develop skills and confidence, in Indonesia and Malaysia. Syllabus presentations Making connections We introduced teachers to our We held two conferences for our new Piano syllabus at events international representatives, bringing worldwide, including seminars in together key contacts from Europe and Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia the Arab States. and Singapore. 8 Inspiring musical achievement Exams and assessments Expanding horizons Our core activity is the worldwide provision of high-quality music exams, and this continued successfully during the year. There were 672,000 ABRSM assessments taken in 2012–13, an increase of 2.5% on the previous year. Practical graded music exams remained the most popular. We know that to maintain our high standards we must continually review, and where necessary improve, all aspects of the ABRSM exam experience. The Annual Review 2012 9 We continued to train new examiners and Exams and support our existing team through courses, assessments conferences and new resources. UK and Ireland attended these courses and 36 have Music Theory During 2012, 357,000 assessments – since joined our examining panel. Our In response to customer graded music exams, diplomas and June training session was, for the first feedback we introduced faster Music Medals – were taken in the UK time, held offsite. This allowed us to access to Music Theory results. and Ireland. This represented a 2.8% accommodate more trainees and was They are now available online increase on the previous year and was so successful that we are now planning after four weeks, as opposed to the highest number of UK and Ireland further offsite training in the future. six weeks. We also published exam entries since 2006. our Music Theory marking We also organised jazz training for criteria online. Our diploma exams remained popular, examiners. Twenty-three attended the with the number of entries exceeding workshop and, as a result, 18 are now our expectations for the year by dual jazz and classical examiners. 16%. Theory entries also exceeded UK and Ireland predictions by 2.5%, while entries for A total of 641 classical, jazz and This was the first full year of Music Medals were up 8% compared diploma examiners worked for our new exam timetabling with the previous year. There were us in 2012. In addition, 90 Music framework in the UK and declines for some instruments within Theory examiners marked ABRSM Ireland – the first step the woodwind and brass families, exam papers. towards future customer however. Overall, Piano and Singing service developments. We exams were the most popular. We also updated many of our examiner continued to work hard to reference materials, producing a new improve customer service and Around the world examiner role description and person efficiency on a day-to-day basis A total of 315,000 assessments were specification, application guidance and, at the end of the year, taken internationally – an increase notes and a new Code of Conduct. We launched a major initiative of 2.2% on the previous year. We saw also developed online examiner tools to encourage more online particularly strong growth in China for viewing and downloading candidate exam bookings.