In the past few years, I’ve written a number of blog posts about digital music exams, the most recent of which you can read here. When I share these, particularly on social media, whatever the actual subject of the post, there’s one question which comes back every time from teachers: are examiners permitted to rewatch videos when marking exams?
In face-to-face exams, this is clearly not possible, but where a performance has been submitted for a digital music exam, an examiner could, in theory, watch the performance back either in full, or to repeat shorter sections. This makes the assessment slightly different.
On your behalf, I put this question to the three main exam boards offering digital music exams:
- ABRSM (Performance Grades)
- LCM (Recorded Exams)
- Trinity (Digital Grades)
I contacted all three boards on 26th February 2025, using the contact forms on their respective websites (no email addresses were available). I should say that it has taken until the end of May, over two months, to gather the three replies. The issue of communicating with exam boards comes up frequently, and I can understand why. All three had to be followed up, some more than once.
But what about the question itself?
You may be surprised to hear that the response from all three boards was broadly similar. The expectation is that examiners will watch videos in their complete form, in a single viewing, so that they are assessed in a similar way to face-to-face exams.
That sounds good, doesn’t it? The trouble is that beyond that, the responses were a bit, shall we say, woolly.
All three boards noted that there would inevitably be occasions when examiners needed to rewatch a video in the interests of a ‘fair assessment’. Whilst it was acknowledged that these instances were ‘isolated’, two exam boards indicated that in this respect, examiners weren’t prevented from rewatching a recorded performance, either in full, or to revisit short sections. It was acknowledged that with exams submitted in this way, ‘customers’ accepted that this might happen.
I want to single out Trinity here, because they were the only board where examiners marked videos through a specialist assessment platform which allows only a certain amount of time per exam, enough for a single viewing only. That said, it was also acknowledged that there were mechanisms in place should a technical problem prevent an examiner marking a performance in full, for example, if their internet connection drops. This, to me, seems like a good approach, and fair compromise.
I got the impression that some boards had, perhaps, thought about this issue more than others. In one case, there was no particular policy in place regarding the rewatching of submitted performances.
Where does that leave us?
I think we can take some comfort in the fact that the expectation all round, is that performances are viewed in a single take, and that any instances of sections being rewatched are isolated, and not the ‘norm’. That said, in some cases, it is obviously up to individual examiners if they wish to rewatch videos, and as was noted, in most cases, there was no mechanism to prevent them from doing so.
As we all get to grips with the differing requirements of the recorded and digital music exams, it’s great to be able to explore some of these issues in more depth. I’m pleased that all three boards were willing, eventually, to engage with this discussion and share their practice.
It is, perhaps, not the concrete answer some people hoped for, but it is another insight which adds to our understanding of this still, fairly-new form of music assessment.
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