Ready for your ABRSM exam? How we check before you pay to sit it

There is a moment in every music student's journey that quietly worries the people paying for it: the first exam. A parent will ask, almost in a whisper, "And if she sits it and doesn't pass — do we lose the money?" It is a fair question, and an important one. ABRSM exams are not cheap, the fees climb with every grade, and a child who sits before they are ready loses more than an entry fee.

So here is how Concerto handles it, plainly: we do not enter a student for an ABRSM exam until we are confident they will pass. Not hopeful — confident. This guide explains how we reach that confidence, what we look at, and why we will happily tell you "not yet" when not-yet is the truth.

What entering too early actually costs

The obvious cost is the entry fee. ABRSM practical and theory fees are paid to the board at the time of entry, separate from your lesson fees, and they rise steeply from the lower grades to the higher ones. Enter for a grade the student is not ready for and that money is simply gone — there is no discounted resit.

The bigger cost is the one that never appears on an invoice. A child who walks into an exam under-prepared and scrapes a low pass, or misses it, learns a quiet lesson: music exams are frightening, and I am not good at them. That belief is expensive. It is the reason students quit a year later. A confident first exam, passed with room to spare, teaches the opposite — and that belief carries them all the way to Grade 8.

What "ready" actually means

Being able to play your pieces at home is not the same as being ready. An ABRSM practical exam has four parts, and the student has to deliver all of them, to standard, in one nervous sitting in front of a stranger:

• Pieces — three contrasting pieces, performance-ready, not merely note-accurate.
• Scales and arpeggios — recalled instantly, in whatever order the examiner asks, with no warm-up run.
• Sight-reading — a short piece they have never seen, played cold after thirty seconds of study.
• Aural tests — clapping rhythms, singing phrases back, answering questions about what they hear.

And from Grade 6 upward, Theory Grade 5 must be passed first — the gateway that quietly blocks students who only practised the playing. "Ready" means all of this is secure on a bad day, under pressure — not on the best take of the week.

How we check: a real mock exam

Confidence is not a feeling, it is evidence. So a few weeks before any sitting, we run a full mock exam under real conditions. A trainer the student doesn't usually work with plays the examiner. The room is set up like the exam room. We run all four sections, in order, with no second tries — and we mark it against the actual ABRSM criteria and pass mark.

The mock does two jobs at once. It shows us exactly where the marks are — often it is the scales or the sight-reading, rarely the pieces — and it gives the student a dress rehearsal for the nerves, so the real day feels like the second time, not the first. We will usually run more than one. We are looking for a student who clears the pass mark comfortably, with a margin, on more than one mock. A single lucky pass is not the bar.

When we say "not yet"

Sometimes the mock says the student isn't there. When that happens, we tell you — clearly and early, with the specific marks that need work and a realistic timeline to fix them. We would far rather have an honest conversation in our studio than an expensive disappointment in the exam room.

This is occasionally an unpopular message. A parent has a date in mind; a child wants the certificate now. But holding a student back one sitting to enter them strong is, every single time, the kinder decision — and it is the one we would make for our own children. The certificate is not going anywhere. The confidence, once dented, is much harder to rebuild.

How we get you to ready

Preparation is not a panic in the final fortnight; it is built into ordinary lessons. Scales are drilled every week until they are automatic. Sight-reading is practised little and often, never crammed. Aural is woven through lessons rather than bolted on at the end. By the time a sitting approaches, the exam is simply a slightly more formal version of what the student already does each week.

When the mocks say you're ready, we enter you, handle the registration with ABRSM, and confirm the sitting date. You walk in expecting to pass — because the evidence already says you will. (For how the grades fit together, read our guide to the ABRSM exam pathway.)

The short version

You should never pay an ABRSM entry fee to find out whether your child is ready. You should pay it knowing. That is the whole point of how we prepare and assess for exams — and it starts, like everything here, with a conversation.

If you have a student wondering whether this is their year, book a free discovery session and we'll give you an honest read on where they are. You can see what lessons and exam fees cost on our pricing page.