Herts consortium first round music test results are out

[Harvester]

Does anyone happen to know if the piano used for the audition is an upright or grand?

[Cutting42]

Cutting42 do they have any time to warm up? For example to get the feel of the piano and relax first.

Yes they did with my DC, there are several practice and teaching rooms at the Muse and they got 5 mins to practice and tune up etc in a nearby room.

[Cutting42]

Does anyone happen to know if the piano used for the audition is an upright or grand?

Its usually a Grand in the large teaching/exam room. The same room they use for ABRSM exams if you have been there before.

[Cutting42]

Does anybody know how many DCs sat the music test and how many got through to the next round?

Apparently, the administrators said that 190 were sitting the test and another 20 who were on a school trip would be sitting on the backup date. 170 seemed a bit low from the people I could see especially considering there were other test centres too.

I have heard that the 1st round reduces the number by a very large amount, 80% or so as there are only a limited potential number of places available. If you think that there are just 5 schools taking music entry at 10% of places and one school taking 5% that has to be somewhere around 110 music places in total. It makes sense to aim for around 200 to get through to the audition stage as they take a long time to get through. They need a few extra as many will change their mind or select different schools.

Please note, these are my estimations, not gospel as I am not part of the selection process.

[noonynunu]

Please note, these are my estimations, not gospel as I am not part of the selection process.

I'm not sure you will know the answer to this but do you know what, if any, impact inner catchment siblings have on music selection process? A friend said that they saw 8 siblings (not cross siblings) who live in the inner catchment sit the test. Would these children automatically get sibling places or is there a situation where by they could be allocated a music place?

I only ask as I don't fully understand the benefit of siblings sitting the music tests if they are only likely to get a sibling place.

[onzeplus]

noonynunu, The sibling criterion takes precedence over music so the only reason I can see is that the younger sibling is aiming to get into another one of the consortium schools.

[2unfair]

noonynunu, the day my ds sat the first round of music test there were several parents who said their dc need not sit the test as they were siblings but 'wanted' to do this test to ascertain how good they were.

[Cutting42]

Please note, these are my estimations, not gospel as I am not part of the selection process.

I'm not sure you will know the answer to this but do you know what, if any, impact inner catchment siblings have on music selection process? A friend said that they saw 8 siblings (not cross siblings) who live in the inner catchment sit the test. Would these children automatically get sibling places or is there a situation where by they could be allocated a music place?

I only ask as I don't fully understand the benefit of siblings sitting the music tests if they are only likely to get a sibling place.

Hi noonynunu

I think onzeplus nailed it, sibling admission is a higher priority but only at the school that the sibling is attending. They could be trying for a different school.

I am not sure what happens if there are so many siblings that they go over PAN. Maybe they have to increase the PAN???

[noonynunu]

noonynunu, the day my ds sat the first round of music test there were several parents who said their dc need not sit the test as they were siblings but 'wanted' to do this test to ascertain how good they were.

I think that some of the parents were under the impression that the siblings were sitting for this reason. Apparently some of them were quite upset by it because if the siblings get through to the second round with the likely result being them getting a sibling place, they have prevented others that could otherwise have been entitled to a music place from getting through.

I think onzeplus nailed it, sibling admission is a higher priority but only at the school that the sibling is attending. They could be trying for a different school.

I don't know the children or parents myself so this could be the reason.

[3b1g]

The cut-off for getting through to the second round seems to be stable from year to year, so even if children who might accept a sibling place take the test, this has no discernable effect on applicants who score lower than the cut-off. They wouldn't have been invited to audition anyway, even if no siblings sat the test. The consortium have been doing this for years, and I'm sure that by now they are able to estimate how many will score high enough to audition, and how many of those will actually go on to accept a sibling place.

The music places always have a long continuing interest list of (non-sibling) applicants, many of whom are still disappointed when it gets to September of Y7, so the schools already have an excess of high-aptitude applicants.