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Good afternoon I am seeking help from parents with vocational students at 11+ upwards who are studying full time at specialist vocational schools - music, dance or musical theatre ......who have a diagnosed disability - mental health, anxiety, Asperger's syndrome, ASD, learning disability including dyslexia and dyspraxia etc. I am interested to find out the name of the institution and course or GCSE's etc, how support is provided, how it is funded - i.e. is the student in receipt of a DAD, MDS or privately funded, who pays, if anyone, for any specific support provided due to the disability. I am aware of the support available for students on degrees where Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) is available, but it is all the others from 11+ where a support need might be identified but not provided. I am undertaking this research as I am involved in the initial research prior to setting up a private company to provide this support through identified funding. Please respond via PM! All personal details will be kept confidential and the information provided used to underpin the knowledge gained to explore if the companies aims are sustainable and if the funding that has been identified would be suitable for students with disabilities in these situations. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide. Heather aka Taximom

Hello all, This is my first post but I’ve been reading for a while. I have a budding ballet boy age 9, literally just starting Grade 4 RAD. He also has just started an extra grade above this class and some 1:1 non-syllabus work with his dance teacher. He is also doing a non-syllabus Boys ballet course with LCB taught by Erico Montes, which he is absolutely loving. All the above occurred because he auditioned for EYB last year and danced for them in Coppelia and he said I want to do this for the rest of my life. So I said ok then what to we do now and off we set. He is a beautiful little dancer, with wonderful musicality and a love of all things classical ballet. This I suspect is the beginning of our journey, so we are going to apply on the advice of his dance teacher for last year of RBS JA’s. So my dilemma is my son has high functioning autism and severe dyslexia which means for him that he has difficulty processing certain types of verbal information, initially transposes directional information and is slow to pick up routines. And most significantly of all he is still very socially vulnerable. However he is proof positive that with the right teacher you can still excel and overcome. We are not interested in WL or residential schools as he could not cope with these at the moment. I have lots of emotional conflict about all of this for him and my dilemma is whether or not to put his additional needs down on application forms or to let him audition without anyone knowing. I suppose I am worried that if I put his diagnoses down he may never be given a chance; and whilst I know he can’t be directly discriminated against how would I ever know. When he auditioned for EYB I didn’t put it down and as I got to watch the audition along with his dance teacher, I can say I was well and truly gobsmacked he was so good. I had completely underestimated his talent and capabilities despite his dance teacher telling me otherwise. Long post I know, but have been holding this stuff in my head for ages, and am just about to send RBS application off but.....

Sorry if this is not in the right area of the Forum to post this but I thought it was worth sharing. We are all on the Forum because of our involvement in ballet in some way or other: teacher, mum, dancer. I found this article to be truly inspirational especially at this time of year when we awaiting the outcomes of auditions for our able bodied dancers it puts our trials and tribulations and successes and knockback's into perspective. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/humankind/2017/01/17/not-being-able-walk-her-own-dancing-ballerina/96633118/