Motomum

I booked my child but I have my doubts it will run. Zoom maybe 🤔

BBA expects focus, discipline and respect for your peers and teachers in classes. There is a uniform as well, with again an expectation to look neat and tidy and presentable. BBA is lovely, the class sizes are bigger than most associate schemes, but this does not stop good quality learning from taking place; the teachers are in our experience lovely and well qualified. @Emma northmore is often on site at Rambert, approachable and willing to give of her time to answer questions and offer advice. It is a lovely associate scheme.

It was very sad reading indeed. We don’t seem to have come very far at all despite all the talk about mental health in the media. I notice Piers Morgan tearing into Osaka in an article yesterday. Ballet dancers now in vocational training are being coached and trained in a way similar to that of an athlete. I wonder if that changes the amount of pressure felt to succeed in a way that wasn’t there before?

I just want to say Thank-you to everyone who has replied. Your comments have been really illuminating and extremely helpful. My child is starting in a Y8 place they have had offers from other vocational schools previously but weren’t ready for boarding. Still might not be. The Tring application came as a bit of a curveball through the wonderful CBA and Desi Samaii, where my child had just started this January. A sort of surprise application. We hadn’t applied anywhere else, and then when the offer came we knew nothing really about the school, but accepted anyway. My child gave up many of their other dance classes to pursue ballet as finances just didn’t allow for a wider dance base. They are excited that Tring offers, tap, contemporary and modern alongside classical ballet, plus acting and singing. Very nervous still about boarding though. We shall see how it goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Thank-you again everybody.

Can any parents of children on the dance course, or knowledgeable members tell me what system of training Tring vocational ballet classes follow? How does it differ from Royal Ballet or Elmhurst, or is it the same? Does a child training at Tring come out with the same overall technical proficiency of classical ballet training as the other vocational ballet schools? Where do Tring ballet trained students graduate to, both Upper Schools and companies? I can find lots of information about the Performing Arts alumni, but very little about their dance course specifically.

@Sadielou yes my child has been bored and uninspired throughout, and I think what happened was that the classes and the teacher just never met his expectations in anyway shape or form. (There were other more specific issues, but even with those dealt with what you have written was definitely my child’s overall experience.) I know that both of us expected truly great things because it was RB Associates, hard fought, the next level etc, but it is a very particular specific way of training and it IMHO it needs the most dynamic of teachers to spark the child’s enthusiasm. My child had this in Y6 JAs so it is possible. we kept expecting things to improve, and of course lockdowns utterly disappointing initial offerings from RB just compounded the problem. It has been very useful to explore this issue here I have held on to it for a long while.

At least 50% of the older vocational students are in a certain Associates it is the only one allowed by the school.

I have sent the email for him to stop. I think because Associates happened before the vocational started I didn’t think clearly that he was then doing plenty of dancing. He is very happy in his current school and training, loves it very much, it’s tough and demanding, plus driving makes it a long week. Thankyou everyone for your input, it just cleared a path in my tired brain.

@Anna CI do know what the problem is, but it’s not resolvable as he can’t change classes. I have tried to tentatively tackle the issue but nothing changed. I think as adults we understand better how to navigate the unpredictability and nuances of each other’s personalities and idiosyncrasies. Children take time and need support to mature and develop into this very complex world, this class does not lend itself well to this.

I didn’t really think about it, as vocational training started last September and child already doing Associates. I hadn’t really thought of it that way before, children in residential training don’t do associates.

He had a class today and he was really miserable afterwards, miserable to a point where he was just flat and withdrawn. 😕

@Balletmum55 doing the end of year assessment is a good idea, this might offer a change of perspective. There are no options to change centres that I know of. Bizarrely the JA teacher was amazing, much more challenging and dynamic; and I think more of the same was anticipated for MAs, but it is a very different approach to teaching that just leaves my child ‘switched off.’ For them in a ballet class this is very unusual and not at all typical. I did tentatively broach the subject in the annual feedback phonecall, but having now watched the classes on Zoom I can see why my child isn’t engaged in the classes. @Anna CI thought at first it was just the newness of it all and maybe that it was more challenging, but it wasn’t. Ending out the term is what I would expect of my child. They are in non-res vocational training that started last September which they are just loving, so don’t in any way need to do this class. I think maybe as I write it might be more about me. We definitely got caught up in the RB whirlwind after gaining a Y6 JA place and then the Intensives. Leaving it all behind feels a bit weird, it consumed so much of our lives for what felt like such a long time. I thought my child would stay on through the Associate program but when they found out it would be the same teacher , there was no longer a chance of me continuing to read my book over a weekly coffee in the ROH. 😊

I think I’ve held on in there for them because it feels like such a big thing to give up when I think of how hard fought the place was for my child to get. I would say they are bordering on miserable. I’m going to give it until half-term, check again, and stop. There have been quite a few posts on here recently that have reflected upon when is it time to stop a class, training etc and they helpfully made me revisit this again. The place will be filled in an instant of that I’m sure. 😀

My child is really not enjoying their Associates classes at all. They have been fairly consistent about this from the first half-term Y7. they do not click with the teacher at all, and feel the class does not add anything to their training, the teaching style is for my child a bit too loose and vague. They are finding it a joyless few hours except for the contact with their peers. The pandemic certainly got in the way which didn’t help as it was then pre-recorded classes and Zoom. If it were possible to change centres or teachers this would be my preferred option, but it’s not an option. I’m not a great believer in just stopping things, but it’s a long haul for us to Covent Garden making it all more of an ordeal. Is it ok just to stop?

THIS ^^^^^^^^ Change schools!

You raise a really good point indeed. My son is in Russian based vocational training here in the UK, and at 12 is still at pre-vocational level, but the training is intense. Their focus is very different indeed. Starting young is everything. Interestingly all the Y6 children who auditioned for WL from one particular Russian school were successful in getting a place.

You have taken my comment out of context, ‘the rest’ was made by @The red shoes, not me. The point of a discussion is that it moves and flows through many different points of reference as this one is doing. This is not about right or wrong it is about the changing platform of ballet training, all POV are valid and interesting. If we all just ‘moved on’ there would be no forums like this and no interesting discussions like this one.

The problem is ‘the rest’ very often is no longer coming from the child with home practice and that’s the point of this discussion. It is disingenuous to suggest other wise when the problem has been identified by the Royal Ballet School itself in an article written by Mark Annear.

You haven’t. I think the discussion got muddied as the conversation veered toward a specific school. It was a great conversation starter and well observed. I have observed it too over the years gathering momentum, making it very difficult for lots of children to compete alongside others on a level playing field. There will always be places for exceptionally talented children who get through with no extras, but this year IME has been very different and has crystallised more powerfully what has been gathering momentum in ballet training. The Royal Ballet wrote a piece on something similar a couple of years ago.

All credit to your son, in defence though of the OP, your son and children like him are not the focus of this discussion. It is not an attack on those children who don’t do extra, or an attack on those that do. It seems to me it is a very valid discussion about the trend toward more and more of everything when it comes to dance. It maybe distasteful but it is a valid discussion about children who are 8/9/10 being polished dancers because of privates, intensive ballet training and hot housing toward entry into competitions like YAGP, PDL and entry into prestigious vocational training schools. The discussion doesn’t detract from these children’s achievements it asks whether potential is really what’s being assessed anymore. This years WL intake is very relevant because many of the children whom we know have trained differently and more intensively and more than has been so in the past that I can remember, and this matters because it altars the playing field, altars it massively.

This was my son, who joined JAs Y6, from a Saturday morning RAD class, and made the WL final, but we wanted an MA place and he got one. That was 2 yrs ago and he’s been on quite a ballet journey since, but has never had privates or extra classes. He started with his current ballet school last September, which is non-residential vocational training and that is 5 times a week plus his MAs. He was offered an immediate start place at Elmhurst from their Prelims last January. He went for the audition experience, not for the place, and has recently been successful for a Y9 place at Tring. All this occurred with regular ballet classes and his Associates. Oh and an annual Intensive and performing with EYB or BRB. He’s had a great time over the last few years, really enjoyed what’s been on offer. Our funds are extremely limited so we have had to look where funding is available. Hard but doable. What I’m saying is absolutely let your children try, anything is possible, it really is. Your post does highlight what we see all the time on our travels, children doing 3/4 associates, training everyday plus privates, Pilates, body conditioning and so on. I don’t believe though that this makes for well rounded dancers at their age, I imagine they must be very worn out. I know my son has been very tired since starting vocational training plus travelling and school. If your children love dancing that’s all that matters, and you can afford the audition fees, then you have nothing to loose. The experiences are really lovely ones even for the parents. I love waiting for my son whilst he is in MA class at Covent Garden. FWIW my son is 13 next week and is not allowed on social media and does not have internet access unless it is on our main computer. He has Instagram that’s private and managed by me. We joined to find classes through lockdown and it was a great way to access classes that he would never have been able to do. Keeping his social media closely monitored really helps because he’s not exposed to what’s out there, he isn’t really aware of it in one sense. He knows his worth as a dancer amongst his peers and that is way more important than how many classes he has fitted in.

based purely on the MA cohort at CG for my child, In a group of 14, one child hadn’t been a JA, and all had made WL finals. A child came in at Y9, not previously a JA, but had been WL finals. JA teacher said that RB like to take children through Associates that have trained with them; same goes for huge percentage of Associates in WL and Intensives. There are of course children here and there who come in from outside, but you can check RB annual report to see that most of the children training at WL have come from JAs and similar with Associates. It always seems to me that RBS doesn’t need a second guess, their choices are documented annually in the public domain.

All three.

Does anyone know when the WL finals are for children auditioning Y8-10?

No it isn’t, that’s why Mark Annear head of Associates is on the finals audition panel, they identify who they want for MAs pretty much from the finals, and the Prelim videos. Mark Annear is also present on the panel for Prelim selection. All the children in my child’s Y7 MA’s happened to be finalists, previous JAs and also on Wait List. Im not saying that will always be the case, but IME it often is. There are always some children who come in from other associates , but usually via the finals.