ABRSM Piano 2027 Syllabus: What Parents Need to Know

The first parent in Harrow to ask me about this called yesterday.

Her daughter is preparing for Grade 4 next spring, and she had heard, from another parent in the playground, that "a new syllabus is coming". She wanted to know whether to push on with the current pieces, change books now, or wait.

I have answered some version of this question every two years since 2017.

This article is the version I will be sending parents over the next month.

The new ABRSM Piano Syllabus 2027 & 2028 is published on Wednesday 4 June 2026. From 1 January 2027, candidates can use the new repertoire in exams. The current 2025 & 2026 syllabus stays valid until 31 December 2027.

That gives families a twelve-month window during which both syllabuses are live.

The short version: for most students, this changes very little. The longer version is below, because the timing of the next twelve months matters more than the syllabus itself.

The facts, in one place

Before we get to your child's situation, the basics that every parent should know about a syllabus change.

• Publication date: 4 June 2026. Books available from the ABRSM Shop, online retailers and high-street music stores from that day.
• First exam date with the new pieces: 1 January 2027.
• Final exam date for the current (2025 & 2026) pieces: 31 December 2027.
• What is changing: the repertoire. New pieces at every grade from Initial Grade through Grade 8.
• What is not changing: scales, arpeggios, sight-reading and aural tests. These are identical for Practical Grades.
• The overlap rule: during the twelve-month transition (1 January 2027 to 31 December 2027), candidates may sit an exam under either syllabus. They may not mix. All three set pieces must come from the same syllabus.

Read those once. That is the whole framework. Everything below is judgement about how to use it.

What is actually different in the new pieces

The repertoire refresh follows ABRSM's standard pattern. Roughly a third classical core (Bach, Mozart, Schumann, Grieg and Debussy all appear at multiple grades). Roughly a third broader concert repertoire from twentieth and twenty-first century composers. Roughly a third arrangements that lean into film, television and contemporary pop.

A few of the headline pieces from the new syllabus:

• Initial Grade: Rihanna's "Lift Me Up" from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, arranged for young hands.
• Grade 3: "Always With Me" from the Studio Ghibli film Spirited Away.
• Grade 8: Joe Hisaishi's theme from Porco Rosso.

The Studio Ghibli inclusions are the obvious headline. For a generation of children who already know these melodies by heart, the motivation to learn them properly will be considerable, and that motivation is half of practice.

The classical core remains where it has always been: technically demanding, musically substantial, and a fair measure of grade-by-grade progress. The pieces change. The standards do not.

Should you wait for the new syllabus, or carry on?

This is the question every parent asks me in the months before a transition. The answer depends entirely on where your child currently is. Find your situation below.

Scenario 1: Just starting out

If your child has not yet started ABRSM preparation and you are reading this in summer 2026, the simplest path is to begin with the current 2025 & 2026 syllabus.

Here is why. Initial Grade and Grade 1 take most children twelve to eighteen months from absolute beginner. By the time they are exam-ready, the new syllabus will be available and their teacher can choose either. There is no penalty either way, and starting now means they are twelve months further along when the choice arrives.

Waiting until June to start is the wrong instinct. The unchanged components (scales, sight-reading and aural) make up nearly half the Practical Grade marks, and those can be built without touching a single set piece.

Scenario 2: Exam already booked in 2026

If your child has an ABRSM exam booked between now and 31 December 2026, they will sit the current 2025 & 2026 syllabus. The new pieces are not relevant to their exam. Carry on exactly as you are.

If they will continue with ABRSM afterwards at the next grade, their teacher will decide together with you whether that next grade uses the current or the new syllabus. That is a conversation for after the exam result lands, not before.

Scenario 3: Exam planned for 2027

If your child's first exam (or next exam) is in 2027, you have a genuine choice. Both syllabuses are valid for the whole of 2027.

The deciding factor is timing. If the exam is in January, February or March 2027, the current syllabus is the sensible choice. There is not enough time to learn three new pieces of unknown standard to a confident exam level.

If the exam is in autumn 2027, the new syllabus is the better option. Your child gets a full year to prepare to it, the new pieces are likely to feel fresher to the examiner, and you will not have to switch books mid-preparation.

Exams in summer 2027 are the genuinely judgement-call ones. A good teacher will look at your child's reading speed, current repertoire and the actual three pieces shortlisted, and decide.

Scenario 4: Returning to piano after a break

If your child stopped lessons and is starting again this summer, treat them as Scenario 1. Start now, build the foundations, choose the syllabus when the exam actually arrives.

The overlap rule, in plain English

This is the bit that catches teachers and parents out every cycle, so it is worth a paragraph of its own.

During the overlap year (1 January 2027 to 31 December 2027), both syllabuses are valid. Your child can be entered for an exam under either.

What they cannot do is mix.

If you choose the 2025 & 2026 syllabus, all three set pieces must come from that syllabus. If you choose the 2027 & 2028 syllabus, all three set pieces must come from that syllabus. You cannot take a piece they have been working on from the current book and a piece they prefer from the new one. The exam entry form will not allow it, and the examiner will mark down any candidate who tries.

This sounds obvious. In practice, more than one family per cycle gets caught out by it, usually because a child has fallen in love with a Ghibli arrangement they saw in the new book and the parent assumes they can pair it with two finished pieces from the old.

What does not change at all

The components most likely to derail an exam are the unchanged ones. This is worth holding in mind.

Scales and arpeggios are identical. The list, the keys, the speeds, the rhythms, all the same.

Sight-reading: same standard, same format, same difficulty progression.

Aural tests: same. Clapping in time, identifying intervals, singing back phrases.

For Performance Grades (the recorded-only route), the structure is unchanged: four pieces, one of which is a free choice. Only the set repertoire lists change.

Practically, this means that anything your child can do now on scales, sight-reading or aural is not at risk in the syllabus change. If you want a high-impact thing to work on through summer 2026, that is the right answer: build the unchanged components, and treat the new pieces as a piece-selection decision in the autumn.

Our free complete piano scales guide covers the ABRSM scale requirements grade by grade, with fingerings and keyboard diagrams. It is the same reference I give to families on day one of a trial.

How we are handling the transition at Piano with Norbert

For our existing exam students, here is the plan we are walking parents through:

• Students with an exam booked before December 2026: no change. We finish the current syllabus pieces.
• Students preparing for spring or summer 2027 exams: we will most likely stay on the current syllabus, unless one of the new pieces is a meaningfully better fit for the student musically. A judgement call per child.
• Students at the start of their next grade with no exam date yet: we will read both syllabuses through June and decide piece by piece. Where the new syllabus has a stronger piece for that specific child, we will use it.
• Brand-new exam students starting in the second half of 2026: we will start them on the new syllabus directly.

The 90 per cent merit or distinction rate we have at ABRSM and Trinity does not depend on the syllabus. It depends on knowing the pieces deeply, preparing the unchanged components properly, and entering the exam when the child is genuinely ready. The change of pieces in June 2026 will not move that.

If you would like an honest read on how Trinity, RSL and ABRSM compare for your child specifically, we have written a separate piece on that: ABRSM vs Trinity vs RSL: which UK piano exam board is right for your child.

A note for parents new to ABRSM altogether

If your child has never sat an ABRSM exam, the syllabus change is not the right thing to worry about.

The right thing to worry about is whether your child has a teacher they look forward to seeing, a piano they can actually practise on at home, and twenty minutes a day to build the small habits that turn into Grade 1.

The pieces matter much less than the consistency.

If you would like to talk through where your child is and what the right starting point looks like, we run a £10 trial lesson at our Harrow studio. Thirty minutes, with a Trinity Laban-trained teacher, who will give you an honest read and walk you through a sensible twelve-month plan. Whether they start with the 2025 & 2026 syllabus or wait for the new one is a conversation we will have together, based on what is right for your child.

Book a £10 trial lesson, or read more about how we teach first.

A short final word

Syllabus changes look like a bigger event in the year before they happen than they do in the year after.

By next summer, the new book will be on the shelf next to the old one, students will be learning pieces from both, and the panic about timing will have evaporated. The thing that will still matter is whether your child practised in May and June 2026, regardless of which book the pieces came from.

The window is small. The pieces are details. The teaching is the thing.