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Royal ballet summer school Covent garden


Amethyst

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Has any of you any experience of this? Just wondering how long after the closing date do you find out if you have a place ? Also it states in the website that for younger ones at Covent garden there is a supervised youth hostel. Roughly how much does this cost? Does it include meals? Are they supervised in travelling to the upper school? Any information would be a help. Thanks

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My DD attended this last year and it was by far and away the best summer school she has ever attended. It doesn't match with school age so Upper School summer school is actually for those from age 15 (year 10) upwards. I can't remember the exact timings but I think you find out around the end March/beginning of April.

 

RBS Upper School has its own accommodation for full time students and the younger ones can get allocated a place in one of these houses, but there aren't a lot of places and they tend to go to the overseas students (of which there are a lot) first and then those students that liver further away. If you are unsuccessful with a place in their own accommodation, they give you a list of suitable hostels/hotels which you can book and I think you get a reduced rate if you say it's for RBS summer school. Either way, expect to pay about £600 for 2 weeks accommodation on top of the course fees which I think are about £500 for 2 weeks. As always, people on low incomes can apply for help with funding.

 

Edited to say: if you get a place in their own house accommodation, there is a house parent to supervise them. If you book a hotel or hostel then you are on your own. They get vouchers for reduced price meals in the Opera House staff canteen so can get a decent meal for about £5.

Edited by Ribbons
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If you want to know exact time 'til a reply, I think I have the paperwork still in my filing cabinet- I will try and look it out.

 

My DS got a supervised hostel place- he hadn't yet turned 15 so I guess it may be because he was younger (we are about 2 1/2 hours away door to door so couldn't commute daily). I think all the other boys in his hostel were overseas from what I remember.

 

Included in the price of the hostel was breakfast and enough snacks to satisfy even those boys with 'hollow legs'; although they were told they should eat main meals at ROH the house mothers were lovely about the teenage boy requirement for 10 meals a day (at least that's what it feels like when he's home) and pretty much fed them constantly. There was a huge fridge completely full at all times (for the 16 boys in the hostel). So it ended up being quite a good deal cos he could otherwise have spent a small fortune on food....

 

They weren't supervised to travel to the school but tended to go in a bunch so didn't get lost. I did the run from the hostel to covent garden once with him on the day of registration, after that he did it by himself fine. If you don't have one I would completely recommend buying an oyster card (it's easy to do via the TFL website and they post it to you)- you can then load it up on day 1 and then not only is it half the cost of cash it means they don't have to faff around buying tickets/travelcards....

 

The house mothers were absolutely superb, can't speak of them too highly. Any problems were instantly sorted out (DS bent his oyster card in his back pocket and had to get another, one which they did for him) and communication was instantaneous.

 

Hope this useful....

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Does anyone knows roughly how early the classes start each day and what time they finish? Wondering whether it is commutable, or whether there are any evening events?

I think it was roughly 9am-5pm. There were quite a lot who commuted in and some had train journeys of approx. 2 hrs each way

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Can anyone tell me more about the actual summerschool ie standard and if they do other types of dance and weather it is every day for the 2 weeks or do they not go at the weekends ... i cant seem to find anyone who has done it or maybe most come from abroad ..thank you

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Hi, am trying to sift through the paperwork from last year, havent got all of it (am sure DS shed bits along the way) but this is what I can find

school day classes are 9.30-11, 11.30-1, 2.15-3.30, 3.45-5 (breaks in between)

there are 2 classes on the first sat, the rest of the weekend is free. the final sat is a half day as there is a performance.

classes included classical ballet, contemporary, character, body conditioning, repertoire, jazz, musical theatre (and pointe and partnering as appropriate)

I see from DS's class list that 7 out of 26 were from the UK. He said the majority were foreign.

The summer school is BIG there were at least 4 boys groups of about 15 students, and I think more groups of girls. Groups were on the basis of age largely as far as I could tell...

according to DS standard was mixed- he said most had a lot of potential but he didn't think all were particularly technically advanced.

pastoral care was exceptionally good.

I know others on the forum have said their DKs loved the school, my DS was less impressed but then he's very wedded to russian training so perhaps not surprising.

hope this helps, any more questions I can help with let me know!

 

Oh and finally, he got his acceptance letter Jan 3rd- have just found it!

 

edited for typos!

Edited by CeliB
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Not at all - I know of a lot of children who aren't RBS associates to get places and they certainly don't always give places to associates as priority. 

 

Obviously children who are currently at the RBS most don't chose to do summer school as they are there all year anyway and want to go home.  However, keen vocational dancers from other schools will certainly get places!

 

An older girl from our local school has done the course 3 years running - dd's best friend applied last year but was unsuccessful - fingers crossed for her this year! xx

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Hi there, my DD did the summer school last year at Upper School and loved it. RBS expected them to be there by 9.00 latest to be warmed up ready for class at 9.30. They tended to finish the day between 5.00-5.30 pm. There were a lot of foreign students, and my DD really liked that she made some really nice friends from around the world. There were 3 groups of girls. Everyone's experiences are different and I can only comment on my DD's experience which was all positive :)

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  • 4 weeks later...
Guest balletmum16

Thanks pastle. By April sounds like end of March but who knows! Anyone remember when results were out last year - we're new to this!

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