2dancersmum

Thanks for the help and advice so far. Some things for us to think about for sure. His office is literally 2 mins walk from Victoria station but to be honest I think he is looking at where he can travel to by tube or bus, not necessarily the train. We're finding quite a few places within his price range but we know rooms go literally overnight so none of them will still be available when we visit London and not knowing any of the areas its difficult to know what to expect. So currently looking at district line, Victoria and jubilee lines. Fingers crossed we get him sorted!

My son graduates this month and has been fortunate enough to have secured a good job in his chosen career. Only downside is is that he is to based in offices close to Victoria station. We know how difficult it is to secure accommodation in London and are planning a visit next week to see how we get on. Question 1 - oyster card - will that be my best method for making multiple tube and bus journeys over a 3 day period. I don't think I am confident enough to drive in London so I will be parking at Hillingdon and tubing in and have a hotel booked. Question 2 - any areas people would recommend we look or avoid? He obviously needs a fairly easy commute to Victoria/Pimlico or even Westminster tube stations. He is looking at a room in a house share. Obvious closer areas are Vauxhall, Stockton, Battersea, Brixton - but any parts of these districts best avoided? Or he is better looking to east London - Canada Water. Canary Wharf, etc and coming in on the jubilee line. He is keen to keep his commute under 30 mins. Any advice appreciated.

I would suggest a visit to your doctor actually. My DD has different sized feet and it has never made the slightest bit of difference for pointe work. One of her friends had what you are describing and it turned out to be her hip placement. They said as children grow legs can grow at slightly different speeds and this friend's natural position had become so that she walked and moved with her hips ever so slightly out of alignment. It was not noticeable until she tried her first pair of pointe shoes -( she too had already stopped growing) when it in essence it made it seem like one leg was longer than the other. The good news is that after wearing special insole in all of her shoes over a number of months the problem corrected itself. Now you may not have the same issue, no matter how common it is, but I would get yourself checked out to be sure..

Just be careful in your search for extra classes too that you are not choosing quantity over quality. There is no fast track in ballet. Adding in extra hours is practice time but it does need to compliment/supplement your existing training and not clash with it, otherwise you could be spending a lot of time and money and find progress very slow when teachers from different places are telling you different things. I say this especially as I am not sure of your actual grade or level as your posts have mentioned grade 3, 5, intermediate and advanced. That's quite a wide range . Ability and potential are only 2 factors - but to successfully audition you need to be solid in your technique. DDs teacher always likened learning ballet like building a wall - you can build it quite quickly but if you have gaps or too little cement in the lower levels, the top levels with no solid foundation will eventually tumble down. You may be doing so many different levels because you are in advance and need more hours. But I believe you have only been dancing a few years so it may be that your teacher is still underpinning your technique as it were with aspects of other grades that you still need to perfect.

I'd also suggest having a chat with the teacher about your aspirations and how you can increase your hours. I don't see why you couldn't go to the other school and do their classes - as someone else said - a different syllabus so no clash of interests. But I don't know you and I don't know if your teacher has any reasons for not wanting you to go to a particular school. She may know something about the school that you don't or think that you need to work on something in particular before you spread your wings. When my DD struggled to get enough hours at her little local school , the teacher talked us through different schools that were reasonably travelling distance and suggested which in her opinion would be the best fit for us to check out and which she should avoid - avoid not because they were bad schools but because she wanted DD to go somewhere that would help her reach her goals. In the end my DD did grade classes and modern at one school and vocational, jazz and contemporary at another but she did have a year at her initial local school first - doing classes in grades below her own aswell as her own (to increase hours and strength) before her teacher deemed her ready.

I love clarnico mint creams too and you can buy them in Morrisons and possibly Sainsburys. As a product they were discontinued for a while and now the packaging is different as they have dropped clarnico from the title of the product - now just Maynards Bassetts Mint Creams but still shows 'clarnico' in the image and its written on the actual sweet wrapper. Just bought a packet this morning!

My advice would be to contact the school as soon as possible for their list of host families and then make contact with any families as soon as possible. Your DDs age may well be an issue as I'm not sure if most are for post 16. Good luck

I knew of a few people there last night, at least one still unaccounted for. My facebook feed is full of appeals for news of missing kids from last night. Feel sick to the stomach. Close friends daughter was there and is ok, though pretty shaken. Such a horrible world we live in

The school should be issuing you with a list shortly I imagine. My DD went to the Hammond at 16 and we got the list about half term time. The list gives details of landlady accommodation - names, addresses, details of rooms available and lists of other properties with rooms available which are for over 18s only. Typically for under 18s a landlady will offer bed, breakfast and evening meal and has several students living with her in the house. The list will indicate how many etc.. rooms are available, if single or shared etc. They also send out a map with the properties so that you can see where they all are. My advice is to ring up as soon as you get the list and if you are able to visit any of the properties do so. We actually went without my DD as she had GCSE exams and met and looked around 3 different places, settling on the one we felt she would like the most. The list of landlady properties is not huge but everyone seems to find somewhere and priority does go to under 18s now which was not the case when my DD went. Don't be worried about contacting the school to see when the list will be issued or if you are having problems finding somewhere. They are very helpful and will not mind.

Actually Kate I was not advocating buying a ticket for one station and leaving at a different one. I was talking about splitting the ticket for a long journey that goes through or involves changing at Birmingham when going from north to south. It is a strange anomaly that you can buy a ticket from many northern stations to Redditch cheaper than to Birmingham and if you are changing trains in Birmingham anyway then you have a valid ticket for your Birmingham onwards leg of the journey. Its fiddly but as you say, ticket-splitting can work out cheaper. Having had a few years of one child on the south coast and one in the north west we have got quite used to reducing fares by splitting tickets at Birmingham, Bristol or Cheltenham, depending on the direction of travel.

Jan - one tip I can give you for journeys from the north that go through or involve changing at Birmingham is to check fares to Redditch as well. Its actually cheaper to buy a ticket for Liverpool to Redditch and just not use the last part of the ticket than it is for a Liverpool to Birmingham ticket. I think all trains for Redditch go through Birmingham so longer journeys can work out cheaper too by having separate tickets for the northern and southern leg of the journey, changing at Birmingham.

Perhaps the words 'fun' and 'hobby' were not the best choice but the bottom line is that your DD does have to enjoy what she is doing - not just aged 7 but onwards too and personally I think her own enjoyment and pleasure in what she is doing is key. There is nothing wrong with her having drive, passion, determination and dreams for the future but I think it is important too to remember that dreams can change. My DD was about 7 when she realised that some people danced for a living and it was something she could do when she was grown up and that became her dream. But she is the only one from her local ballet school that actually became a professional dancer, even taking account of those that went to vocational school. As a parent you are doing all the right things, encouraging her , supporting her and talking to her and letting her talk. I do know what you are going through. My DD aged just 6 was too afraid to tell us what a girl from her school and ballet class was saying to her - name-calling, tripping her up, pulling her hair because said child had threatened to break both her legs if she ever told anyone. It was heartbreaking seeing our happy child almost 'shrinking' at the thought of going to school, tummy ache and tears every morning. After hearing her talking and screaming in her sleep, she finally spoke to us and we were able to speak to her teacher and start the healing process. Even so the identity of the bully only came out by accident about a year later and she still cried because she thought this girl would get her. But my DD did get through it. She still got spiteful comments on and off over the years, often from this same girl and her friends but she never really let it get to her again. As I said before, encourage her to think for herself about the nasty comments people make and why they may make them. Don't tell her - after my DD responded with 'you have to say that you're my mum' when I told her she was beautiful after a day of others calling her 'ugly', I then asked her why she believed them, did they always tell the truth, were they always honest and fair and she realised for herself, with her own examples of their behaviour towards other people, that just because they said it, did not mean it was right.

Your poor DD, kids can be so nasty sometimes. If it hadn't been her ballet, it probably would have been something else - or someone else. Its bullying plain and simple - whether it is because someone likes ballet, wears glasses, is the smallest in the class, doesn't play football - any reason whatsoever. In terms of dealing with it and reassuring: talking to school was obviously the first move. In terms of offering her reassurance to your DD, perhaps turn the tables and ask her if the boys have ever done ballet, does she think the boys know more than her dance teachers or are they just being silly. And above all you need to just emphasize that ballet is a fun hobby, just like swimming or gymnastics or football (or whatever else the other kids in her class do). As long as she knows she can talk to you and that you support her, she will be ok.

RAD Associates in Birmingham are once a month and have an advanced ballet group.

Is this for a dancer in lower school or for post 16 training? For our DD (aged 16-19) it was about 1/3 of the cost to do our own research and select our own health insurance to cover DD and her dance training. You do need to be prepared to phone around and discuss what you want . We had AXA PPP for 2 years - a basic policy that you then add or remove option blocks to tailor it to requirements (hence the phone calls) - we added the 'physio option block'. We had a claim on that policy and found them quick and efficient. When DD reached 18 the monthly premium rocketed and dh phoned round again and this time went with Aviva. You obviously need to do your research to see what the school policy offers and what insurance the school's or closest physios will accept.

It is 11th to 13th May... wish I could make it too! http://www.thehammondschool.co.uk/news-events/news/

Central School of Ballet is one of the schools that come in the 'Conservatoire' group and as such normal student loans and maintenance loans are available through Student Finance England and their equivalent in Scotland and other countries. So the same finance as a university basically.

And if the train you are supposed to be travelling on is cancelled (or severely delayed) you need to check with the ticket office for which train they will allow you to use your ticket on. Not so long ago DD was travelling from Chester to Birmingham on an advance ticket and her train was cancelled. She had to wait for an hour for a train they would allow her cheaper ticket to be used on, despite there being a few trains from the same and different operators doing the same route before then.

My DD only took tap aged about 5 - pre-primary was all she did. She picked it up again at vocational school aged 16 in the regular timetable. After a few months she opted to start optional intermediate classes and took her exam six months later with a very high distinction. She is now a professional dancer so a lack of tap in her early years has not held her back. If your DD is really not enjoying the tap classes, I would let them slide for the moment. She can always go back to tap at a later stage if she wishes.

I think BOA has quite a range of abilities within each year group and although a good number do go onto top vocational schools with funded places for dance courses, I know there are also plenty who do not. My DDs have had quite a few friends go to BOA and all but one did secure funded places for further vocational dance training - for level 6 Trinity diplomas at Laines, Bird, Millennium, Stella Mann (all dance) or for degrees at Laban (contemporary) and London Studio Centre (jazz strand? not sure) . The one who did not gain a place anywhere did not actually apply but decided dance was not the career for her. I do not know the breakdown between dance and practical but would believe that the dance program would prepare a student for dance courses, just not necessarily classical ballet. I know one of the girls currently doing a level 6 diploma in professional dance commented that the academic content for the BOA course certainly prepared her as a lot of the topics/assignments on her level 6 course were similar - but obviously studied in more detail and depth. I am not sure if they do much ballet, but rather a mix of dance styles. There are a lot of performance opportunities - some of which are entry by audition - often by visiting companies - like Matthew Bourne where BOA dance students often perform at the Hippodrome prior to the opening night of a Matthew Bourne production. I would have to say that you would need check for additional ballet classes. I know some of DDs friends were still intermediate when they started year 12, taking the exam through their local schools in the first term and they were then able to do advance 1 at BOA, whereas another year a friend already in advance 1 found there were no additional classes at her level - due to staff changes. I can tell you that all the girls we know (and a few boys) that have been to BOA have thoroughly enjoyed their time there. Incidentally, DD also knows someone who went straight into work from BOA and is dancing professionally overseas.

I think it may have been me Lisa, I private messaged you so presumably you should still have the message. I suggested the wheeled holdalls on Amazon. The brand we have is Jeep, the 27 inch extra large I think which hold about 20-25 kg for airplane travel quite comfortably but I am sure other brands are ok. You just need keep an eye on prices as they all vary a lot depending on colour or pattern. DDs still look brand new, despite paying less than £20 per case and she has taken them on 4 flights and numerous train journeys now. Matalan cases - the very lightweight ones - are also a possibility if you can get them in a sale.

Congratulations to your DS on his place at ENBS. Holland House is one of the hostels in the London Hostel Association so there may be others closer to the school that you could consider as well, although I am not sure if there is a minimum age of 18. I believe under 18s in London or elsewhere often stay in homestay accommodation. I'm sure the school should be able to provide some contact details for you. Queen Alexandra House, mentioned above is no good for your son as it is women only. My son spent a year at Holland House when he was on a placement in London but he was a few years older than yours. There were students there from ENBS when he was there (nearly 2 years ago). Holland House is very central but is in a surprisingly quiet location on a little square tucked out of the way. It is just a few minutes walk to Victoria tube, train and coach stations. My son had no problems with his room, food etc.

My DD would say about the same as Lucinda. Her covering email is short and expresses interest in auditioning - if it is to a specific requirement (like height, availability) or it is in response to an advert she will briefly state she meets the requirements/refer to the advert. And then she links in her cv, photos, video as required. DD incidentally has 2 cvs. One is purely a dance cv (performance) and the other more general as it includes non-performing jobs too, like teaching, retail experience etc.

DD1 has friends at both Laban and LSC, graduating this year. Both have thoroughly enjoyed their courses. Personally I would be looking at costs as I believe there is a significant cost difference between the two and only you can decide if the LSC course warrants the extra thousands. Bear in mind also that your DD will be in London and will have every opportunity to take classes at an advanced level in other genres outside of the college she attends, if she so wishes. Another friend of DD1s is a lower year at Laban. He chose Laban for the ballet and contemporary but his background was more street and jazz and I know he does classes in these and extra vocal coaching locally to Laban.

Im glad something positive is happening for you. One associate scheme you could also consider is the RAD Associates. It is not by audition but is good non syllabus classes. They are held one sunday a month in Birmingham and the commitment is 4 sessions at a time. Also in Birmingham you can keep an eye out for classes and workshops run by Birmingham Royal Ballet under their insight day program. Their day workshops are normally a mixture of non syllabus, repertoire and a behind the scenes/make up/costume section although my DD did attend one which was specifically for pointe. Auditioning for a place at 16, I would not rule out looking at other schools other than just RBS. You can do A levels alongside at Elmhurst, Tring, Hammond and Central School of Ballet. Tring in particular is known for having a wide choice of subjects (compared to the others) , good results and you are able to take 3 A levels. Something to perhaps consider if your parents want you to keep academic options open further down the line.