Lisa O`Brien

I'm talking about ITV's World Cup coverage. The music is Swan Lake. It shows Odette. She's obviously a dancer. Just wondered if anyone knew who she was? Is the footage from Russian television, that ITV are showing or is it ITV's own ?

Oh my goodness, Pups. What a fine, decent, principled young man you are raising. No wonder you welled up. I would have too.x

Wishing you and your two daughters all the very best of luck for the future, 2dancers  x

How exciting. I'm sure he'll be fabulous x

How quickly the time has passed. The very best of luck to your beautiful DD, Katymac.

Wishing both you and your daughter the very best of luck for the future, Huddsballetmum. Do pop back onto the Forum from time to time to let us know how she is getting on x

The very best of luck to your DD, Dancer123.x

Kat09 I want to wish you, your daughter and whole family the very best of luck and good health for the future. Please pop back in to the Forum from time to time. ( I'm not on here as much myself anymore either).x

Crystaltips I too am so sorry to hear your child is in this situation. It has rightly been said many times on this Forum that both the child and their parents are paying customers. Paying for a service, for which standards ought to be maintained. The dance world is a short one and young people really do need the best possible training available to them in line with their abilities if they are going to stand a chance of making it.  If any vocational school is not providing this service to a high enough standard then it's time to take your custom and money, elsewhere. The very best of luck.

1 minute ago, invisiblecircus said:

It's "dilemma," not "dilemna." Sorry, couldn't resist
 

 

I think it's really nice o you to care so much, but as frustrating as it may be to keep quiet, I would deinitely mind my own business on this and not give any unsolicited advice. Her son will most likely be being exposed to material other than that created by his mum, so he will have the opportunity to pick up on correct grammar from other sources and will hopefully even be given some specific exercises on it from a text book.

 

If he does end up going to a secondary school and is behind, the school should be able to provide the necessary support to get him up to speed.

Yes, thanks invisible. I did Google the spelling and it said you could spell it either way. I think with the "N" is possibly American. As I said my English is far from perfect. And i'm not the sole educator of an eight year old.

Thanks Anne. Just scrolled down her Facebook posts over the last few months. No full stops or commas. What has come up time and time again is her mixing up "our" and "are". She writes, "On are way home". "She,s are mini guard dog". " Seeds our growing nicely". "Corbyn and his cronies". Cronies spelled cronnies. You might be right about the keyboard, I don't know. I know it is none of my damn business. But she has thrown herself into this home educating with her heart and soul, I know she has. She told me the school rang her every day for months, but the last time was over six months ago. No formal letter from the education authority or anything. I think they are just letting her get on with it. As I say it is absolutely none of my business, but as a friend, I too want what's best for both her and her son. 

I have a good friend I have known since primary and secondary school. Although we were not really close while at school, over the years via social media we have become so. We have opened up to each other and confided in each other. She is warm, kind, caring and a wife and mother to three wonderful sons. Her youngest, who is now eight years old, has been home schooled by her for the past two years. The child claimed to have had his head shoved down a toilet by older children and he cried and refused to return to school. The school investigated and found no evidence whatsoever that the incident ever took place. However my friend, like most mothers wanted to do what was best for her child. The boy begged his parents not to send him back to school. Instead of finding a different school for him, they ( mainly the mother) have kept him off school ever since. The school used to telephone and threaten them with prosecution all the time, but now over a year has passed and they have stopped ringing. She has a set itinerary for him each day and she plans his lessons at specific times. She also takes him to trampolining lessons and nature lessons/trips to places and meet ups with other home schooled children. She said she has not seen her son as happy in years. Now this is my dilemna and I have had it for over a year now. My friend's spelling, punctuation and grammar are awful. Every post she makes, almost on a daily basis, are littered with the most basic of spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes. Really basic things. Now i'm not perfect at the English language; far from it. Yet I am not educating an eight year old daily either. I am concerned she doesn't realise and is passing those errors on to her youngest. In every post she puts commas where apostrophes are supposed to be and vice versa. For instance when she writes we've, instead she writes we,ve. When she writes i'm , instead she writes i,m. Today she wrote "On are way home" instead of our. Now, i'm assuming that nobody has so far pointed any of this out to her. Do I say something, in the nicest way possible? For the sake of her educating her young son? As a 50 year old, it probably no longer matters how her spelling and grammar are. Yet to that little boy, when I think of how she must be teaching him the wrong things, it makes me concerned. If he goes to a school when he is 11, ( and she said she will decide nearer the time whether to continue home-schooling him at that age or not), how far behind is he going to be? Am I doing her and her son a massive disservice in NOT saying something now before he gets any older? Will she be offended and upset I have pointed this out to her? Will she be upset if or when her son reaches secondary school and is unable to spell or use grammar correctly, that nobody had the decency to tell her beforehand? If it was me and it was my child being educated at home by me, if I were making such simple mistakes in my teaching with him I would jolly well want to know, sooner rather than later. I haven't seen her face to face to speak to in over 30 years. So I don't know how she would take it. Do I say nothing, and just let her carry on ? What would other people do? Many thanks. ( Sorry it's so long). x

Well there's already the Manchester-based Royal Northern College of Music. Plus the Royal Exchange Theatre, so I don't see why not.

At first when I read the title I thought it meant Northern Ballet had been awarded a Royal Charter and were to be called Royal Northern Ballet.

Congratulations from me too, Arucaria. Fantastic results. x

I absolutely agree with Taxi. Soft ballet shoes should fit your foot like a glove fits your hand. No room to spare and perfectly fitted to your own individual feet. You will only get this by trying several pairs on in a shop. 

Hi Djaamila and welcome to the Forum. My closest friends knew I did Ballet but not everyone did. I grew up on a council estate in Manchester and was definitely the only person at my high school who did Ballet. My friends were very supportive but other girls who found out called me a snob . Anyway, they all came round in the end after watching me dance in a school show and then when I got into Urdang at 16. They were all like, "Wow, I know someone who is going to a top dance school in London when she leaves school". People DO have a certain image of Ballet in their heads that it is girly and even silly. But as others have said, try it yourself and come to your own conclusions. There are a lot of adults out there who discover Ballet very late and massively regret the fact they never "found" it when they were younger. Also, you can pick up some good DVDs on Ebay if you wanted to watch some professional productions at home.

Sean, my 21 year old son, starts his third job today. Third time lucky, and all that. The previous two were disasters. The first at Teleperformance, the equipment was really poor quality. He could barely hear what people were saying to him so felt unable to help, and therefore do the job properly. He stuck it out a few weeks but on the second day knew it wasn't for him. He got another job at Friar Tuck's, which is a local fast food place here. Did all the training and enjoyed it. But then noticed the younger ones were getting a lot more shifts than he was. He asked the manager about it but was never really given a satisfactory answer. He thinks or suspects that they mostly employ the 16 and 17 year olds, ( and some are still only 15 working evenings and weekends) so they don't have to pay them much. For his last two weeks there, the phone didn't ring once asking him to go in. Not for the entire fortnight. So, he saw a job at a local supermarket. For any of you who know Ireland , North or South, you will know that a big supermarket chain is Dunnes Stores. Well he was offered a job with the Hill Street branch in Newry. It's only 16 hours a week though, so he isn't going to be earning a huge amount. But he had to sign a contract, he gets sick pay, holiday pay, a pension, etc. So it's all above board and will definitely be working the 16 hours every week, which is something. Still wants to go to University one day. But he will have to find the £4,100 first year of tuition fees himself. He'll need to be putting £50 a week away, every week, for about 19 months to get enough saved up, so he'll have to be really disciplined with himself. If THIS job doesn't work out, then I will start to suspect it's HIM who is the problem , not the work. ( Really hope i'm wrong on that one).

I only started watching Corrie in the last few months ( after reading about a juicy story line which was on the horizon). Never watch any other soaps. In fact, the last time I watched Coronation Street before this period was when Hilda Ogden left. ( In my snobbery, i'm kind of hoping that once this particular story line has ended it will all go back to being boring again, and I will stop watching it once more) !!

For those who watch it, Susan Hilton, my drama teacher at Lostock School, Stretford Manchester, and a fantastic supporter of my dancing, appeared as Doris on Coronation Street tonight in several scenes. She was the one wearing glasses. After she retired from teaching she went back to acting professionally and works on the stage regularly. She trained at Manchester Polytechnic    (Now Manchester Metropolitan University) with Victoria Wood and Julie Walters, and it was just so lovely seeing her have multiple speaking parts and scenes on her Coronation Street debut tonight. Hope we see more of her and her two friends !! 

Very sad, but inevitable news. RIP.

I hope with all the publicity, the costumes are found soon. They won't be of any use to the villains. If they tried selling them online people are now aware of them and will be alerted.

1 minute ago, sarahw said:

 

Reading marks out in class? 😯😯😯

This is what Northern Ballet School used to do. In front of all the parents too. It was always on the last day of term, when parents were allowed to come in and watch the class. At the very end the Principal, Patricia McDonald, would come in and read everyone's results out. In order. EG, those with Commended were called out first, then those with Highly Commended , then finally those with Honours at the end. We went up to her to receive our certificate while everyone applauded. Most people got Honours in every exam, except for Senior Grade, when only my name was called out with it.  There was always one girl who thought she was the bees knees. She got Highly Commended. You should have heard her mother saying to my mother afterwards how her daughter had been unwell on the day of the exam. Funny how she never said anything to anyone including the teacher on the actual day. Pathetic really. But I suppose in their defence, it might have spurred people like her daughter on to work harder next time around, I don't know.

I was feeling exhausted all the time and it went on for months. It was really starting to get me down. Had bloods done and I was deficient in both vitamin D and iron, so the GP gave me tablets. But ever since then, for about the last year I have been taking a one a day multivitamin with iron . They are Sainsburys own brand so are cheap. I've noticed a huge difference in my energy levels. I always buy the bottle of 60, so I know i'm going to have enough for two continuous months before needing to buy new ones.

When someone DOES master doubles and triples you'll often find that going back to doing a single is really hard. It takes a lot of control to limit yourself to just the one. Ditto doing half turns.