I know....

.... you must all be as sick of "Katie doing music" photos as you must be of "katie dancing" photos. But she's had some big days recently with her music. Today being perhaps one of the biggest so far. 

Today she took her first music exam. 

She woke full of beans, ate a huge breakfast to add to that. She did a bit of homework. She had a run through her exam syllabus, just the once and with lots of confidence-boosting praise. We played some funsies piano. She had a long bath before we did her hair in the pretty style she had decided was necessary. She wasn't that thrilled that she had to go to school before the fun could really begin, but she did so fairly tolerantly. 

She said they did PE including making up their own games, some very quick phonics, assembly, guided reading and then playtime til mama came for her. We got a taxi from school to the station and headed to the city. I'd left her jacket at home, so we nipped to buy her a cardi. Which served well for walking to the music centre but was too big so had to be taken off when we got there! 

I was really proud of how delighted she was to arrive. This afternoon has been carefully planned for weeks. B and I have worked out exactly, to the minute, how it all should work. We have drilled Katie in what would happen before the exam, during the exam, after the exam. And it all worked fantastically. B was waiting in the entrance hall. After mama-cuddles, she took a smiling Katie straight upstairs. Exams are in the band building, so I have shown Katie where she'd go. They went up to the warm up room, which is where she's photographed in her blip. They sent it to B's daughter, who's become a bit of a friend to us. She played her pieces happily to warm up. B said she could tell she was a little nervous but that it was "I care about this" rather than "I'm too scared/not ready". They went in the exam room; B settled her with her little foot stool and moving the piano stool, wished her luck and left. She confessed later that it was quite a "gulp"/heart-tugging kind of moment, just setting her up then walking out and leaving her littlest pupil to it; she normally accompanies her woodwind pupils for their pieces before she leaves.

The smile that went in the room was as big as the smile that came out. 

She said that the sight reading was easy, that her pieces were great apart from not sounding a note on a very quiet bit of one piece, that she got her questions right and that her scales weren't "pausy". It was so fantastic to see her coming out so happy. She said she didn't say a lot to the examiner, and the examiner didn't much talk to her. She said she'd talked quietly when the examiner asked her questions because she was a bit shy of her but she made sure she heard her. She did so fantastically. 

B took us for a celebratory lunch. Katie had a ginormous cookie and a babyccino. She was on cloud 9. We sent B's daughter an "after" shot, of a chocolate covered, smiling Katie. 

Today was an amazing experience for her. She had such a good time. She was rather unimpressed at having to go back to school but it wasn't for that long. When I took her home, she definitely needed some down time, so had a treat movie time. Until the phone rang. 

B had been at the centre all day and was responsible for gathering the day's results. So she'd seen Katie's exam sheet. Katie had her heart set on a distinction, which needed 87. Katie got 97. 97 out of 100. Her words were "So do I still get a distinction?" 97. She got one pitch naming wrong in her knowledge section and dropped a single note in one of her pieces. That's it. Perfect scores for every single other thing. I knew she was able to get a distinction. But I am over the moon with her final score. She's worked so incredibly hard for this, and it's sole purpose was to set her up in a positive position for when she moves on to more important grades. She's skipped g1 on all her instruments, probably g3 on piano next, and g2 on clarinet. So today being brilliant for her was really a big deal. And she loved it. 

And in true professionalism, she got her incredible score, then went back and cracked on with working on some new clarinet stuff, working repeatedly at a scale she's now cracked and a piece B said today she'd like to see ready for Thursday's lesson. We then spent some time back on our duet. Before she looked at me, drooped her eyes and said she was tired. Yet it took half an hour to get her to bed as she'd decided to sit and pour over her new "student's dictionary of music". She's decided to do a project of "music words in English, Italian, French and German". 

This kid.