Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Brag Time - part one

A month ago, on the weekend after the Shore Junior competition, the girls had their dance exams. 
NZAMD Jazz, much like BAL ballet and RAD Ballet, have two parts to the results:  what the child did in each section and an overall "mark" categorised in words such as "pass", "merit" "honours" etc.
RAD issues a beautiful A4 certificate with the pass level in a big font and another A4 sheet listing the ten sections that made up the exam, with the marks the child got in each section, adding up to the overall number that then became the pass level.  For example, a mark in the 75-100 range meant one got Distinction.
NZMAD and BAL also issue beautiful A4 certificate with the pass level on it.  Their "score" sheet however is a bit different - and way better in terms of feedback, I think. Instead of only four awards (not achieved, pass, merit and distinction) there are nine levels starting from 55%, going up in 4% increments, giving a much finer grading.  I always wished RAD did it too.
The NZMAD and BAL score sheets are the actual notes from the examiner as written during the exam.  The big bonus here is that there is always a comment about what the child did well, and something about what the child needed to work on. Fabulous feedback!  Very encouraging for the dancer.
Finally, at last night's jazz class, Tink got her score card.  She had been hoping to do at least as well as last year (honours - meaning 85-89%) and really wanted to do better.  Her teacher had said to me that this year's examiner, while very lovely to the girls during the exam, was known for being a tough marker.  Uh oh, I thought - there goes Tamsin's hopes of a better mark than last year....
Well, Tink and I were tickled to find this in the result box of the score card:
Honours
Along with some lovely, encouraging comments from the examiner telling her to work to maintain and improve the lovely style Tink is developing.
How cool is that?
Way to go Tinkerbelle!!!

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