JulieW

Brilliant news, thanks. Makes me feel old as my daughter was in the same JA class as two of these girls and that's how I remember them!

A reminder to everyone from now on to please keep this "sticky" thread for particular questions and answers regarding auditions. It makes it easier for people to find relevant info. Many thanks.

What lovely boys :-)

About time too!

Lovely news (but as ever, I do wish they'd list them alphabetically by surname - just a perennial irritation of mine) (is perennial the right word? Lol)

I can't see why they can't open it on a select number of days perhaps for visitors. If it's staying put I'd be amazed if there aren't a handful of knowledgeable volunteers willing to man it on the odd occasion.

I would ask if she knows him, but she only knows a small proportion of her own year, let alone the one above! Mind you, there are fewer boys so that might help (and if he plays rugby she'd definitely know him lol)

Oh yes, Fiz, I forgot the rugby! And next year she's on the social committee too (I think she fancied getting into things for free in return for "working" for a while).

Sarahw - it's pretty easy now they look after themselves - bit still costing us quite a bit! They just come home occasionally with all their stuff and make the house untidy ;-)

Well done Sean. Good results for going into the HND.

My two youngest have passed their 1st and 2nd years at uni. Son with very mixed results - some amazing and some just a pass - but his first year didn't count towards his degree. He wasn't surprised at the lower ones - they were modules he'd found particularly challenging.

Vet student daughter passed all her practicals this year (and the re-sits from last!) which is great (they don't have to pass them all in one go but it's great to get them out of the way). She's getting borderline "first" marks so when she goes back she's going to talk to her tutor about whether she can actually get a first with what she's got already. Her BSc will be finished next year as she has a research project and a dissertation to do. Then after that it's 2 more years to hopefully pass the rest of the the vet course (that bit's pass or fail I believe). She's just come back from 2 weeks on a pig farm, we're camping for 2 weeks, then she's got 2 weeks-ish at an equestrian centre near Abergavenny (staying in our trailer tent lol), then 2 weeks doing her first clinical placement at a vets in Devon. I don't know how she keeps it up!

Welcome elfin :-)

Hope you hear soon!

My daughter's problem when she did Advanced 1 was her "advanced" bust! Had to go for a style that allowed a decent bra underneath - wasn't easy to find but we got there in the end.

Spread the word about the forum while you're there - there's obviously a lot of dance parents out there who haven't found us yet!!

They're certainly an improvement - but we still have our old white JA sweatshirt (which incidentally was passed on from my son to my daughter) bought 12 years or so so :-)

Thanks all - keep them coming - the more donations we get now, the longer it will be before we have to ask again (and I think the "drive" is nearly over).  You'll get "official" thanks from the committee, but I'd just like to add my thanks as a fellow dance mum for helping us to keep the forum going.

Hi Balletqueen. I think it's very fair to say the funding issue at Tring is not very transparent. They do not have a set number of MDS awards to give out every year and in the last few years that I have been looking at Tring closely/been connected to the school, there has been anywhere between 3 and 9 MDS awards given each year.

 

RBS can obviously provide 100% MDS if required and it appears that Elmhurst also has a large % of MDS places, though not all. Tring do not hold all their MDS for year 7 and are happy to give them to any year group, if they feel that child is right for them. This year, children did get boarding MDS places - don't know how many. In the last few years, MDS have only been awarded after the funding audition (don't know if this has always been the case). So clearly they DON'T use all their boarding places for full feeing paying students.

 

It is safe to say, it is very rare to get an awarded place at any of the vocational schools. Many talented children do not get offers (as a rough estimate, possibly 50 MDS awards for dance each year for the whole country!). Clearly, that is not enough for all the talented children to get one.

 

My view is to try. Go for a wonderful day out. All these schools have the most amazing energy and auditioning children are made to feel very welcome. It is a lovely day to spend with your child and put in the memory banks. There may be disappointment but it will be short lived, and the potential opportunity is amazing. Your child may just be that one they want!

 

Please don't be put off by other people's experiences, while of course they are valid, our paths are not all the same.

I've nothing to add to the discussion but just wanted to thank Harwel for a very sensible and useful post :-)

Have a lovely day today everyone who is going. It really is a lovely day for parents, mostly because you get a rare opportunity to see your child dance. And if you're just a visitor it's a chance to have a bit of a WL experience.

I'm so jealous of you all starting out on this exciting time.  Wish I could turn the clocks back (well, sometimes....)

I had to attend the Elmhurst induction day without my son as he was performing at The Linbury with the RBS and they wouldn't release him (despite the fact that they had decided they didn't want him any more by assessing him out - still rankles a bit, can you tell?!).

Have a great day everyone.

It wouldn't be so bad if they would do a DVD (like our "regular" schools did) - parents wouldn't mind paying to have a keepsake of their children's dancing.  The only time I ever got any video of my son dancing at WL or at Elmhurst was if I recorded it (and that was only at the summer fair at WL).  So frustrating that there were all those lovely end of year performances and nothing to look back on (not helped by the fact that at the time, money was so tight due to the fees that I couldn't afford to buy a selection of photos that were taken at dress rehearsals, which were really expensive - I would definitely have bought a DVD).

I think they just need to make it really clear that recordings are for private use only and are not to be placed on public sites such as YouTube.  They haven't been in the past, but I think parents are more likely to these days even from just a few years back when we were there I suppose.

Congratulations on your frustrating situation  

It's not a question that can be easily answered, other than to say that some children do get places off the waiting list. 

Going back to our JA days 12 or so years ago, my eldest son was offered a place off the waiting list (we had a phone call just a couple of weeks before the end of the summer term), went to go to WL, then Elmhurst and is now a professional dancer; youngest son was on waiting list and never got a place (and gave up dance in his mid-teens); and daughter got straight into JAs but no further (continued dancing non-vocationally and now plays rugby instead!).  JAs is just one small part of their journey of life.

Well, that's put a downer on the whole thing - interesting what a change of management has done. One of the great things as a parent was being able to actually get pictures/videos of them dancing for a change. I didn't take my own dogs but thought it was nice to see people could take them in. And we've never has a problem with watching the lawn performances, even with "seat saving".

Thanks for the warning - although I don't think I'll be there this time, it's useful information for others.

Me too :-)

In the 13 years I've been going we've only had rain a couple of times (well, maybe more but it feels like that). The thunder and lightening was interesting when my son and friends were doing the sword dance! I'm hoping to go but I don't know many people there now so I'm still considering....

I think you should be able to see it if you log into PayPal

Merged

Thanks so much everyone :-)