glowlight

A very interesting venture. I think it is great that someone is taking the intiative to use the Government's Free School scheme to provide ballet training, but I wonder whether they will actually get enough boys interested to make it viable. Perhaps if not they will open it up to girls too...

Spanner - I would say that is generally how it seems to be, although of course there are bound to be exceptions.

Something else to consider is Summer and Easter Courses. I would definitey consider those offered by Northern Ballet, especially if you are based in the North of England. http://www.northernballet.com/index.php?q=academy/training-programmes/summer-school Central also have summer and easter courses available - this could be particularly good for your dd if she is considering applying to Central in the future http://www.centralschoolofballet.co.uk/ssccourseoutline.php Now is the right time to be applying for these for this year.

Sorry Rachael, I didn't mean to worry you that your dd might have left it too late. From what I know the london studio centre course is aimed at students who are 18+ so there shouldn't be a problem there. I personally know of girls who've gone to Central at 17. Don't know of any who've gone at 18 myself but from what 2dancersmum has said it sounds as if that's a possibility. My dd went to Northern Ballet School in Manchester at 16, but many of her classmates were 18 (or older). I can certainly see advantages with going to vocational school when you are that little bit older, and certainly there is no problem if the school your dd wants to apply to will take applicants at 16. I just wanted to point out that some (in particular the pure ballet schools) don't. If you are looking for something to enhance her training while she is in the 6th form, if she isn't likely to be fully stretched by her local dance school, perhaps you could look at CAT schemes. CAT stands for Centre For Advance Training There are several around the country and they are intended to offer vocational level training locally so students can still live at home and go to their regular schools for their normal education. She may be too old for some of the schemes, but I know that the Contemporary scheme at Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds takes older students and I expect some of the other schemes do too. This is a link to the CAT website: http://www.nationaldancecats.co.uk/

Rachael - alot depends on what your dd wants to do in the future. If her aim is to be a ballet dancer and she has the potential, then ideally she should be looking to go to full time vocational school at 16. So if she is 15 she should probably be looking now, however she may now be a little late to apply for the main schools this year, I'm not sure what the closing dates are. I would suggest looking at The Royal Ballet School, English National Ballet School, Central School of Ballet, Elmhurst, and possibly Northern Ballet School, Rambert, Hammond, The Arts Educational School at Tring. If she is more interested in Jazz, Musical Theatre or Contemporary then she could probably leave it until she is 18. Northern Ballet School certainly takes students at 18.

We shouldn't forget that ballet is a performance art, so doing shows ie learning how to perform in front of an audience, is an important part of a students training. Ideally you would want syllabus (or more importantly I should say 'technique' classes) to keep ticking over while preparing for a show. But shows are important. Dancers don't get jobs by passing exams, they get jobs by performing.

Just want to throw in here - whilst it will feel like the end of the world to an 11 year old - there have been plenty of dancers who didn't go to vocational school at 11 who went on to have professional careers. And similarly plenty who did go to vocational school who didn't go on to be dancers. It's only the start of the road. Another word of wisdom my dd's teacher gave me was that it can be HARDER for those who don't get rejections early on, because when they do come, when they are 16/19/whatever they just don't know how to handle it. The first 'Nos' are horrible - for the child and for the parent. They often seem to get better at handling them as time goes on. I'm not sure that we do!

Fran - her time will come when the time and place is right. Don't be too downhearted. And that goes for all of you dealing with 'No' letters - things happen for a reason.

I believe that the CAT scheme at Northern Ballet (Company not School - lol) is aimed at students under 16 and they go to their regular schools for their academic education and to Northern Ballet evenings and weekends for their ballet training, so most students live within reasonable travelling distance of Leeds. We know several people who have been on this program. It offers a good alternative for those who do not want to/cannot afford to live away from home, and although it is a relatively new program it seems to have good results in terms of its graduates getting into good 6th forms. As far I know Northern Ballet (company) do not offer full time vocational training post 16. (Though as we've established before, Northern Ballet School, which is quite separate, does!)

And Julie - you are right, it is very confusing with the names being so similar

lisadebs is quite correct. Northern Ballet Company moved into brand new purpose built premises about a year ago. Northern Ballet School have been in the same premises for some time (probably 20 years at least). The building used to be a cinema I believe, and the cinema theatre is now the School's theatre. There are also several large airy studios.

I'll try to clarify this a bit if I can Northern Ballet - the company - is based in Leeds (formerly Northern Ballet Theatre). It operates its own education programs and although it doesn't have a full time vocational course they run VERY good summer courses and Easter courses. The senior International Summer course is geered at students over 16 already in full time training and is geared at getting them ready to work in a company. David Nixon does come in and watch the students working, and certainly some people have got contracts in the company have been to their summer school, but there are lots of others who go on the courses who don't get contracts. Looking at the recent recruits I don't think all of them have been to summer school, but summer school is an opportunity for David Nixon to see the students working over a prolonged period so he can get a good idea of who he might like in his company. The summer school students are taught by Yoko Ichino who is the company's ballet mistress and David Nixon's wife. Norther Ballet School is based in Manchester. It is completely separate from the company. It offers full time vocational training to students aged 16 and above. They also run a summer school, but this is more targetted at younger students, to give them an idea for what it will be like to be in full time vocational training. There is some overlap in the teaching faculties for Northern Ballet's education department and Northern Ballet School, but this is more to do with them both being located in the North of England rather than any particular association between the two. My dd went to Northern Ballet School for her full time training at 16, and she did summer schools at Northern Ballet for several years, so had experience of both.

No - Northern Ballet School is not a feeder school for Northern Ballet. The two are quite separate.

Ask your teacher for help. They don't need to be professional quality, and I used to take my dd's myself in the studio or school hall. But it is more important that they show the child's physique and technique to the best. Your teacher will hopefully be able to help your dds to get into the right positions and will be able to advise you on which of the photos you take is the best from a technical point of view. At least that is my understanding. Thank heaven for digital cameras, it was a nightmare when you had to wait for the pictures to come back from Boots before you knew whether they were good enough!

I think you will soon know if they don't enjoy it any more, and even if they do decide to give up, the experience of having a serious hobby which they worked hard at and were good at will stay with them throughout their lives.

In response to tutoo2much's questions - different companies do different things: Many hold an audition once a year (but not necessarily every year) - you have to send an application in advance (usually a CV and photos, sometimes a DVD as well) and then if you are lucky you will be invited for the audition. When you graduate you will be up against dancers with years of experience so just getting invited to auditions can be an achievement in itself. Some are open auditions where you just turn up. These tend to be huge and some companies manage these better than others. My dd went to one where after two exercises at the barre they split the room in half and told everyone on one side of the room to leave because there were too many people there. But she went to another, where they split people into manageable groups and everyone got a full one hour class, so they had the opportunity to show themselves off to their best. Auditions usually start with a regular ballet class, and they will 'cut' people out at various stages. You may only be in for 10 - 20 minutes before being cut. Gradually they wittle it down to one or two people that they might be interested in. At this point I think it depends on the company whether you are offered something on the spot or whether they will let you know later. Sometimes they will ask people to come back at a later date so that they can see them again, and perhaps work them with dancers from the company. Just because they are auditioning doesn't mean they have contracts available. I know of one girl who got down to the last stages of an audition and was told, if they had had any contracts available that year she would have been offered one, but they didn't. Some companies like to audition in company class which gives them the opportunity to compare you against company dancers. Some companies go to the top schools and spot the students they are interested in. There is very little coordination when it comes to European auditions and the students have to plan there 'grand tours' around the auditions they are invited to and of course plan this in around school commitments, because the schools don't ease up just because people are out doing auditions. January/February/March are the busiest times for ballet auditions, although you do get occasional ones coming up during the rest of the year. Most are advertised in Dance Europe magazine. Royal Ballet, BRB and ENB rarely advertise and I don't really know how their recruitment works. This is how it was a couple of years ago when my dd was auditioning and of course things change, but I hope this helps a bit.

Thinking of you and your ds this week Julie. Try not to hit the wine too much!

I think doing the new syllabus Intermediate could be a very good move. My dd has done Advanced 1 but would still happily go to an Intermediate class when she is home to work on technique. I think from your last message that she is also doing Grade 7, so with that and her Advanced class that would be 3 a week which isn't so bad. And then maybe consider options for private lessons, perhaps sharing them with others, or having a private lesson once a month. And if it all really doesn't seem to work - look elsewhere (but make sure you really are able to get what you want with another school before making the move!)

At an advanced level, if she has aspirations to be a dancer, she should probably be doing more than one class a week. It can be difficult for teacher to schedule extra classes into their timetable so I can understand it being difficult for the teacher to accommodate, but we were lucky I think that DD's teacher understoond the importance of doing more classes, and was happy to recommend other teachers that she would be happy for my DD to go to. There are very definite benefits with having different teachers, because different people explain things in different ways. I don't think private lessons are a long term answer. Not only would it be prohibitively expensive, but you learn so much more from being in a class with other students. Are there any other students of a similar level at the dance school, perhaps you could suggest clubbing together to share a private lesson, thus spreading the cost? The idea of doing classes at a different level is a good one too. No harm at all in doing a grade below the one she is currently studying, and some teachers will allow students to join in with the grade above, but I suppose there may be a worry about getting syllabus confused.

Curved needles here too. They make th job a lot easier. I think I got mine from the market, but I'm pretty certain you can get them from Dance Direct, who also do Darning Thread which is the right shade to go with pointe shoes. (I found I only needed single thickness of thread if using darning thread rather than embroidery thread)

Hi Passionforballet - your question made me smile. Once my dd started auditioning for RBS associates (she didn't audition for JAs) she auditioned every year, but she never got in. In the last couple of years she didn't really expect to get in, just treated it as audition practice. However, I do know of one girl who auditioned pretty much every year and finally got in when it came to SAs, so its definitely worth continuing to try if she wants to (and you don't mind forking out the audition fee every year!)

I'm afraid I don't have personal experience of the NYB audition process, but given that you have a supportive teacher who is encouraging your DD to apply to associate programs, and that your DD is still very young, I would be guided by your teacher's advice on this. She presumably has good reasons for suggesting that NYB may not be suitable, and I would trust her experience and knowledge of your child. Whilst audition experience is good, you don't want to risk putting her off by putting her in a situation where she is out of her depth. Perhaps you could ask your teacher whether there are any other associate schemes or junior companies close to you that she could audition for.

I don't know if this is still the case, but Northern Ballet used to ask you to audition for their summer school, unless you were already at vocational school.

They don't ask for a letter, but teacher put one in anyway. I have no idea whether it made a difference, but she was offered a place on that occasion. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it!

There is info on funding for English Students on this page, although it isn't clear what the fees will be from next year (ie whether they will be charging full fees as English Universities will) http://www.rsamd.ac.uk/studyhere/fees/