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Lower school full time experiences


Dreamy11

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I too am starting to think about next year for my dd - (even though we are not sure if dd would be better to wait till year 11!) there are lots of pages already about auditions at different schools but I was wondering about people's experiences at these schools that are current? My dd is very academic also and I guess I'm wondering whether there is much difference between the obvious schools available, do any focus more on dance than academics, any more on classical ballet than others? Anyone who has recently trawled around these schools I would greatly appreciate any advice, many thanks (dd would not be starting as a year 7)

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Tring's academics are excellent too, by all accounts.

 

In terms of focus on classical ballet then I would look at Royal and Elmhurst. At Tring they offer a very comprehensive dance course with classical ballet being a large part of the training. I have no experience of Hammond but their reputation for lower school dance is excellent.

 

If funding is not an issue then Young Dancers Academy offers academics and very good dance but if I remember rightly they are slightly limited in GCSE options compared to somewhere like Tring.

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Thank you both very much for your advice, I feel for dd her choice would be rbs but we have to be realistic!! I really don't know how difficult it would be to get into any of these schools half way through lower school. I don't really just want to apply for all for the sake of it or is that the done thing? any further advice from anyone would be lovely especially if you have children at any, thank you!

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The odds of getting into any of the "big four" (RBS, Elmhurst, Tring & Hammond) with government funding after year 7 are not great to be honest! Doesn't mean it's not worth trying though. Finances do make a difference at Tring and possibly Hammond, purely because they have fewer Music & Dance Scheme places in comparison to Elmhurst and RBS. Therefore there are more private fee paying places at Tring. Tring has a few school funded scholarships for Theatre Arts and Music but none for Dance. Hammond I believe does have some bursaries available.

 

I would suggest going along to open days where they are available, and getting a "gut feeling" about the schools - not just the dance side but the academics and pastoral care too, along with accommodation if necessary. For Lower Schools I think all audition experience is beneficial but obviously if a school is too far away, unaffordable without funding etc. then it's worth careful consideration about whether to audition there, how your child would feel if a place was offered which you couldn't accept, and so on.

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Personally if you can afford to apply (or at least visit) all 4 then I would do so.  I doubt anyone on this forum has experience of all 4 of the schools and what might suit one child might not suit yours.  You need the balance of dance, academics, accommodation and pastoral care that suits your own child and you need to be lucky enough to be offered a place and you need the financial means. I think most eligible children if not all at Elmhurst and RBS have MDS funding but there are less funded places at the other two, although Hammond does offer bursaries to those it likes and cannot offer MDS to. 

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Hello! This is a subject close to my heart!every child who goesto vocational ballet school will all have a different experience-it's a very personal thing!

I would say there are pros and cons to consider if you have a child that is exceptionally bright...

How academic is your daughter? Is she likely to get bored with the lack of academics at vocational ballet school?

I've personally known kids who have struggled as (obviously!) the focus is on dance during the school day...the older they get the harder it becomes for the very academic kids...speaking from personal experience! And if they decide to leave the dance world at 16 and go back to "normal school" to do a levels/uni route it can be very hard for them to settle in and catch up with kids who have been working towards a uni place for the past 5 years!

No matter how dedicated the kids are to dance-if they are naturally very academic they can become bored at school! And this is despite the schools best efforts with extra subjects offered and gcses taken early.

There is also the factor to consider that the vocational schools can be academically non selective so you end up with a real cross section of different academic abilities. The very bright child can feel pressured into not being perceived as "bright" or "the best in the year" and want to just fit in with the rest of the year group and so ultimately not achieve their academic potential-despite the schools best efforts and support.

The plus side is that being away at a vocational ballet school can be a life enriching and very valuable and enjoyable experience. It teaches the kids discipline and good work ethics, the ability to mix with others from a cross section of backgrounds and independance from a young age. It truly is a unique once in a lifetime experience and the child can always come home if they don't enjoy it!

At the end of the day your child is known only really well to you..don't be persuaded by others!

Best of luck! Please feel free to pm me:)

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Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences- I think dd would be happy to focus more on ballet than schoolwork but we feel dd needs to get an all round education as we know what is capable of. Is elmhurst and tring etc like white lodge where you can get assessed out each year? Can anyone tell me how most days are structured in terms of dance and learning and the hours spent? What happens each weekend too- do they have to remain at the school? Thank you! :)

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At Elmhurst and Rbs they do roughly 4 hours of academics and 4 hours of dance a day. I have a child at state school and one at vocational school and I feel it is a bit of a myth ( just my personal opinion and experience no offence meant to be caused)that the academics suffer at ballet school. They have marginally less options to choose from is the only difference I can see. But the class sizes are much smaller at vocational school plus they have prep time as part of their timetable. They are expected to get excellent marks at GCSE and usually do. I'm not sure what the A level situation is as the ballet is stepped up to an even more intense level at 6th form. But I am presuming kids will have some idea of which path they want at this point and focus accordingly. I feel you wouldn't have to worry about your child being behind or not having excellent GCSE results at 16 should they choose an academic route at that point.

 

Apart from Leave out or exeat weekends when everyone goes home children can choose to stay at school or go home at weekends. Usually from around lunchtime on a Saturday to Sunday evening.

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I definitely do not feel that there was a lack of academic focus or indeed stretch for my dd in lower vocational school. As Peach3 said, there can be slightly less choice of options, but class sizes are much smaller and my perception was that whilst the dance side of things is clearly the main focus and reason for being at vocational school, these young people are driven to achieve academically too. I don't know how many gcses children sit in non-voc school, but dd has 10 very credible gcses. The gcse results a dd's school last year were excellent. Just my personal experience.

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I think it depends upon school facilities as well - for instance a school without a Science Lab would not really be able to offer Chemistry as an option. So just as with all academic school selection, if your child has a special interest in a certain science, language etc. then it's always worth checking which schools can offer that option.

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At Elmhurst and Rbs they do roughly 4 hours of academics and 4 hours of dance a day. I have a child at state school and one at vocational school and I feel it is a bit of a myth ( just my personal opinion and experience no offence meant to be caused)that the academics suffer at ballet school. They have marginally less options to choose from is the only difference I can see. But the class sizes are much smaller at vocational school plus they have prep time as part of their timetable. They are expected to get excellent marks at GCSE and usually do. I'm not sure what the A level situation is as the ballet is stepped up to an even more intense level at 6th form. But I am presuming kids will have some idea of which path they want at this point and focus accordingly. I feel you wouldn't have to worry about your child being behind or not having excellent GCSE results at 16 should they choose an academic route at that point.

 

Apart from Leave out or exeat weekends when everyone goes home children can choose to stay at school or go home at weekends. Usually from around lunchtime on a Saturday to Sunday evening.

How do they do the 4 hours of dance is it split up through the day - like 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in afternoon or similar?  What time does the school day finish?  Do they do any dance after school finishes or is it homework time then?

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Dd is only in year 8 & I don't have experience of state schools to compare our experiences with but here are a few things I've noticed.

 

At our local state schools children tend to start gcses in Year 9 & do about 12-14 which often include diploma equivalents.

 

At the academically selective independent school dd should have gone to & that ds will go to children take 9-10 gcses in mostly academic subjects. They start them in year 10. Dance is not on offer & drama is an extra curricular 10th option. Quality over quantity.

 

At vocational school dd will take 9 gcses.

 

At vocational school only double science is offered as there isn't timetable room for triple. At independent school single sciences are offered. At state school lower sets take double, higher sets are pushed towards triple regardless of their interests.

 

Dance gcse is compulsory at dds vocational school wheras she would have preferred an extra academic subject or drama.

 

She is disappointed that at vocational school she can't do Latin but she couldn't do it at our local state school either. She also has to do French wheras she would have had a choice of languages. (She hated french at junior school but is doing very well at it)

 

At vocational school classes are mixed ability. Most teachers are good at differentiation & it's done wonders for dds confidence in her abilities. However I wonder if some subjects are pushed enough & they don't study beyond the curriculum as she would have done. She had a blip in maths at the start of the year when a teacher left & she had half a term of supply (can happen anywhere though) the work during that half term was decidedly easy. The new permanent teacher is great though.

 

Dds SEN was very quickly picked up on & support given (completely missed in her junior school) & from all accounts her vocational achool is very good in this area.

 

DD tries to extend herself with self study (Khan academy & an online German language programme) but time is very limited.

 

She seems to have a lot less homework than her peers but I think that some schools give far too much.

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I have one DD at Hammond and one at Elmhurst in years 11 and 10. Previous posters have covered a lot, so I will just add a couple more bits of info. While the schools are not selective academically they are set/split for Maths and English in both schools based on ability/needs.  At Elmhurst they have two sets and at Hammond three (at Hammond there is a small intake of children who don't dance) meaning the class sizes are very small for core subjects. Once the children choose their options for year 10, those subjects can have extremely small class sizes. Both my DD's have subjects where there are only 4 children in a class, resulting in more 'tutor' group type learning which is fabulous. Both schools do have science labs and Chemistry is taught as part of the double science GCSE ;). Children who excel academically have taken GCSEs early. A small group last year attained A* grades in maths at year 10. Classes are small and there is no place to hide or not work hard. At prize giving at both schools there are always outstanding academic achievers who are rewarded as well as those children who have worked hard and progressed well whatever their natural ability. 

 

Hope this helps, though its rare for a DC to have a choice of schools as places are so highly sought after. Good luck with auditions.

 

NL.

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I have no professional expertise in the matter, but personally, I wouldn't worry hugely about the number of GCSEs taken, but I would take note of levels of attainment in the core subjects . As the previous poster says, quality is more important than quantity. Obviously there are different views, and I know that some schools do enter their pupils for very large numbers of exams and spread them over several years, but I am not convinced this is necessarily a good thing. Certainly the highest performing schools in our area take a more traditional approach and do around 10 GCSEs all in year 11. I'm told that many universities look more favourably on this approach - possibly because they view it as a better indicator of a student's ability to handle workload, I don't know. But if that is the case, I would imagine that achieving good grades in a smaller number of core subjects, alongside all the ballet, would put a student in a strong position should he or she decide to opt for a more academic route later. Nobody actually needs over a dozen GCSEs, even if they want to do the most sought after university courses. I suspect the demise of modular GCSEs and the change in the rules meaning that schools can only count a pupil's first attempt at any particular exam in their figures may well reverse the trend for early entries and entering students for 13 or 14 subjects anyway.

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I only have experience of Elmhurst sixth form as far as academis are concerned. The choice of Alevels are VERY limited there and include, in my opinion rather odd choices like Art (very time consuming) Dance, drama and very few academic subjects. I think if memory serves me the only academis subjects on offer for A level were biology, maths and English, no languages, no humanities. So my DD did english within the curriculum and French in her own time which was hellishly difficult. That said, the teaching is excellent. The English teacher is inspiring. The ballet course at that level is brilliant but unrelenting and the kids often had trips to birmingham and London after their classes to watch ballets and hear lectures on dance so were overwhelmingly exhausted after all this and had no time for homework on those days. However there have been students at elmhurst that went on to uni (one to Cambridge!) but I'm sure once they decided that's what they wanted the ballet was slightly put on the back burner. Basically, once you get to upper school I believe you really must only do one A level and if you want to go to uni rather than dance at the end of the three years you must take a year off and take another two. Lots of kids take a year off so you'll be the same age as a lot of them once you get there.

This is my experience and humble opinion. If you want to be a professional ballet dancer, the academics at that level really need to wait. GCSES are another matter, of course.

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Thank you so much everyone for taking the time to reply, so kind! I will sit down later, with a cup of tea and my pen and paper and read each and every reply properly! And when we eventually decide I will let you know, thanks x

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I know of a very academic student who attended Hammond until she was 16, by which stage she had decided to pursue an academic route rather than a dance career. She obtained excellent GCSE results - one of the reasons Hammond appealed to her parents was that its exam results were very good (I don't know whether they considered the 3 other 'Big 4' schools at all and I am sure she only auditioned for Hammond). She then attended a state sixth form college and went off to a very prestigious university to study either medicine or dentistry. Clearly her education at Hammond between 11-16 was not remotely compromised!

 

I am sure that at every one of the Big 4 schools, the students will do well academically - they will tend to be in smaller groups, they are happy in their school environment and they will have the determination of every dancer to excel. 

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I only have experience of Tring. The academics there are excellent for all parts of the school. They offer a very varied A level programme too.

The lower school first to third form (yrs7-9) have their vocational classes in the morning and academics in the afternoon, with prep after tea. The senior school 4th- 5th form (yrs10-11) are the other way round. Fantastic teaching in small, set classes and they achieve very good results for all abilities. Pupils have gone on to very academic careers if they choose not to carry on with a vocational career.

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Gcse Exam results for 2014 found on the Department for Education Website:

 

5+ GCSEs at A* - C in including English and Maths

 

Royal - 90%

Elmhurst - 68%

Hammond - 57%

Tring - 0% (This doesn't mean they didn't pass any! Just that it's not been published)

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I'm sure Tring get fantastic results but on their Webste it doesnt state the '5+ A* - C including english and maths'. Please don't think I'm making a negative remark. It's just that there is no comparable statistic published on the Department for Education Website for Tring. It may be as singingfordancers said that it is because they took igcses. I only posted those particilar statistics as most people only have experience of state schools and are used to hearing that statistic published and I thought they would find it interesting as a comparison to their own local school.

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I'm sure Tring get fantastic results but on their Webste it doesnt state the '5+ A* - C including english and maths'. Please don't think I'm making a negative remark. It's just that there is no comparable statistic published on the Department for Education Website for Tring. It may be as singingfordancers said that it is because they took igcses. I only posted those particilar statistics as most people only have experience of state schools and are used to hearing that statistic published and I thought they would find it interesting as a comparison to their own local school.

 

If you look at the National Comparison immediately below the summary table I think Tring's results speak for themselves 100% pass in English and 96.8% pass in Maths.  With that cumulative table headed up "A*-C Grade" it makes it impossible for the overall 95.5% at A*-C Grade not to include English and Maths......and against the National Averages Tring's results make very impressive reading for anyone concerned with academic results, particularly when looking at the onward A Level choice available for their students.  

 

 

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The results for English and maths are higher - 100% and 96% respectively. Personally though I believe the child's happiness is more important and this should be the key deciding factor- an a* student will probably get a* regardless of which of these schools they choose.

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On DOE statistics.....The cohorts in the vocational schools are so small results can sway one way year on year dependent on the intake and so are very misleading and can't be viewed in the same way as a regular school. Maybe someone who has time and the skills could work out the P value.... ;)

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Nana is right. In very small cohorts one or two pupils who may have a SEN for example can drastically affect the statistics. You also can't really look at achievement in the bands of low, middle & high achievers that are published by the state schools as that information often isn't available to independent schools. Children like my dd for example who entered year 7 with no SATS results.

 

The private school ds will go to has according to the league tables 0% of children gaining 5 GCSEs in any subject! That is because maths, english & science are all taken as igcse which the school believes is a more rigorous course & better preparation for a level. As an academically selective school it has the best a level results in the county. I sometimes feel a pang that dd isn't there.

 

But she wasn't overly happy at the attached junior school & she is happy where she is now. There are a few high achievers in her year but some lower achievers too & I believe children with lower academic ability deserve just as much effort to achieve their potential even if it doesn't end up being an A*-C.

 

What I would look for in any school is assurance that no child is going to be left to coast or flounder & each challenged according to their ability. We felt that dd wasn't being challenged in maths but thst has now changed with the permanent teacher.

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All very interesting reading. My DS is in year 10 at Tring. They do academics 8.30 till 12.30ish then prep at 7 til 8.30pm (dancing 1.30 till 6.15).

 

He is studying 9 igcse's to include the 3 seperate sciences. Classes are streamed at the start of the year. The musical theatre students can do 10 exams as drama is included in their vocational studies. He has come from a very academic state school and has found the teaching at Tring to be excellant ( there are always teachers you prefer to others in any school) after parents evening I found the teachers to be very motivated, positive and enthusiastic about their subjects.

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I must say when DD attended auditions at Tring Park I was very impressed at the level of passion exhibited by the head of academics. As a teacher she made me want to work there because I could see that the academics where just as important as the vocational studies. I would have loved to be able to afford for DD to have taken up her place there for year 11... ho hum.

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