A prodigious young musician was denied a chance to audition for a school place because of an “unfortunate” double error when his test paper was marked – despite his mother appealing several times for it to be re-marked.

From a very young age Tristan Vermeulen, now 12, showed natural musical prowess, copying a piece he saw his friend playing on the piano the first time he attempted it, note-for-note.

After beginning lessons himself, Tristan passed all eight grades in just four years – the first four of which he completed in 18 months, all with distinction.

Because of his rapid progression, in 2014 his parents decided to let the young pianist to sit the music aptitude test for a place at Watford Grammar School for Boys.

Despite coming away from the test feeling confident that he had passed, his score of 40 fell short of the 47 required to proceed to the practical assessment.

“I started appealing straight away as no-one, including Tristan's piano teacher, could believe it was true,” said Tristan’s mother Lillian Zhang.

“He was devastated but insisted he did not miss out any questions, and 40 was so low that we just could not believe it.”

Watford Observer:

Over the next four months, Lillian called and wrote to the South West Herts Schools consortium - which oversees all of Hertfordshire’s grammar schools - several times in an attempt to get the paper re-marked.

Finally they conceded to look again at Tristan’s paper and unsurprisingly found an error in the marking; rather than the 40 he was given, Tristan should have been awarded a score of 51, enabling him to proceed to the audition stage.

Lillian said she was “appalled” by the off-hand reaction of the school, saying that they failed to treat the appeal seriously until threatened with further action.

“We are lucky to be determined, and we believed so much in our son. They didn’t offer us an answer which we had waited long and stressfully for, and well deserved. It was my son’s future they played with,” she added.

After investigating the erroneous result, Mr Johnson, deputy head teacher at Watford Grammar School for Girls, wrote to Ms Zhang on behalf of the SWHS consortium.

He said all of the papers were marked by the same teacher and then checked by another person, and that the reason behind the mistake was not “readily explicable”.

“It seems that Tristan’s paper was double unfortunate. Tristan was the unfortunate victim of a double misfortune but there was no unfairness,” he added.  

He also rubbished accusations of paper swapping, saying he “could not see how it could happen or what it would achieve” as all papers have the child’s name at the top.

After the initial problems, Tristan was eventually allowed to sit the audition and passed, attending the school for a year before moving on to the Purcell School for Young Musicians, and would love to build a career in the industry, according to his mother.

However she is still not satisfied with the school’s dismissive attitude towards her well-founded concerns.

“I never got a clear answer to my question about how this had happened or who was responsible,” she added.