JulieW

Can we please keep this thread to discuss graduate destinations and if you would like to carry on the discussion about the pros and cons of Tring Park's ballet programme, please start a new thread. I could move them myself but I'd rather not as some of the comments have covered more than just this point and the whole thing will get confusing

The students are weighed and measured fairly regularly at the vocational schools (well at the two I have first hand experience of) and I know of students who have been taken off dance until they've put weight on.

Oh, that's good of them seeing as we have a long bank holiday weekend which means most people won't get them until next week - you'd think they could put a bit more effort into getting them sent tomorrow - maybe they will (I hasten to add that we're not waiting to hear, but I do feel for everyone waiting - we've been there and I know the schools must have good reasons for the delay, but it's agony at the other end)

We'll leave it as it is Primrose - but perhaps if anyone wants to develop the conversation further in other directions they could start another thread. We'll try to keep this one on graduate destinations otherwise other comments will get lost.

I also don't feel like I can offer much help but my first impression having read this is that the second school is actually offering quite a lot of ballet - my gut instinct, based solely on the info you've give us, is telling me to go for that one.

Gosh - I feel quite emotional after reading that. I hope things work out for him and that there are opportunities ahead for him at sixth form age

I know ds was mighty relieved that most of them in Estonia spoke English! I hate to admit that we're not great at languages in this household (although my youngest son had turned out to be really good at Spanish - we're not sure how )

At least the ballet positions are all in French

Tulip - PHEW :D :D

Thanks for letting us know and I know someone will be happy that there's a DaDA on offer at Elmhurst

We were also (well, hubby especially) concerned about the idea of having someone else bringing up our son, but that's not really the case. You are still very much involved and they are at home for a lot of the year anyway with long holidays, leave outs/exeats. And my son learnt to be much more self-sufficient and confident with other adults that I believe he would have done if he'd stayed at home. The schools are very aware that most people would not have sent their children to boarding school under "normal" circumstances. Now we're at the end of our school journey I can safely say we have no regrets, even with the terrible homesickness for the first year, and the assessing out

I think it is a difficult subject to discuss on an open forum and we should be mindful of only discussion our own personal experiences and not hearsay. Most of the girls I know at vocational schools have a very healthy attitude to food, but of course there are some that haven't, the same as in the general population. But as I only hear about them second-hand I'm not going to comment on them or how the schools deal with it. But I do agree with Lisadebs in that we've found the students are generally very supportive of eachother.

In case anyone's wondering where the previous few posts have gone - I've moved them to the Eating Disorder thread as that's where TheQuays intended to post in the first place! http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/558-dt-article-on-ballet-and-eating-disorders/

Slightly different experience, but similar, in that ds was moving from WL to Elmhurst, but he started there in year 10 and found the first couple of months hard because he missed his old friends, but after that you'd have thought he'd been there all along. It will be a big change for her, but as Seagazer said, it's great that she'll have friends at home as well as at school.

Just speaking for Elmhurst graduates - their employment rate (as dancers) is high (although does vary year on year - being almost 100% some years but around 80% in others). The majority were classical contracts but some are musical theatre, a few on cruises and Disney, and the odd one goes to university. And looking back over the list of those who have graduated over the last 2 - 4 years, many who went off to classical companies are still either in their original companies and the others have moved on to others. (I also went back to graduates from 5 years ago - most still appear to be in classical companies but there were quite a few who don't look like they're still dancing - but the school has moved on a lot in the last few years). I think most of those who decide that dance isn't for them have left before they get to the 3rd year but I have found the odd one who went off to do another type of course, eg one student now studying art & design. In fact, I have had an interesting evening, catching up with people on facebook (!) and have been really pleased to find that the majority of these graduates are still with their original companies, or certainly with the company they got at their next lot of auditions. I was happy to find that, as I suspected, the comment from NinaG in another thread - "Every year, the Graduates are offered a six month (Apprentice) contract (with UK and foreign companies)" - has not turned out to be true of the students at Elmhurst, and I suspect then that the same can be said of the RBS graduates.

Everyone's given some very valid points and I hope you find them useful. Be reassured that you're not alone - even when you've made the decision for them to go, it can be hard to come to terms with for both emotional (not having them living at home) and financial reasons. The point about whether it's the "dream" school is a good one (our son only went because it was, otherwise he'd have stayed at home) and what local training is available (again, because we had a son we felt it was the best way for him to get decent training - my daughter wouldn't have gone because we've got good local schools and associate classes within reach). My husband was the "voice of reason" in the early days, making us stop and think about whether this was the right move, however, due to his own difficulties at work a while ago, he has backed it completely, knowing that it's best to have a good shot at being able to make a living out of something you love doing. Good luck

You're welcome (didn't type it though - lots of copying & pasting )

I've created a separate thread for graduate destinations too: http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/560-recent-graduate-destinations-from-uk-vocational-ballet-schools/

I'll put the link in that thread too (it didn't take long - lots of copying and pasting )

I've moved my post I did a few minutes ago about graduate destinations to a separate thread: http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/560-recent-graduate-destinations-from-uk-vocational-ballet-schools/

I've posted this in another thread but thought some might not be reading that one but might be interested as this subject has popped up in a few threads now. So here's the list I've managed to throw together in the last 15 minutes. I couldn't find any lists for Tring Park, Northern or Hammond and that was as far as I've got. Elmhurst graduate contracts 2011 Students who graduated in 2010 went on to study further or found employment as follows: Joshua Barwick – Northern Ballet Theatre Sam Brown - Estonian National Ballet Sinead Bunn - Munich Ballet Stefania Cardaci – Ballet de L’Opera National de Bordeaux Jordan Clayton - Zurich Ballet Andrew Cummings - Zurich Ballet Nicol Edmonds - Finnish National Ballet Emily Hunt - dancing in The Snowman Nicole Muratov - Bordeaux National Ballet George Willé-Williams - Vanemuine Theatre, Estonia Oliver Wraith - Dance Cyprus Marina Yatsushiro - Singapore Ballet Theatre Students who graduated in 2009 went on to study further or found employment as follows: Amie Ashford – one-year apprenticeship with New English Contemporary Ballet, followed by Disneyland Tokyo Jake Burden – Theater Magdeburg, Germany Stefania Cardaci – three-month contract with Bordeaux National Ballet Natasha Chung – L’Ecole atelier Béjart Rudra, Switzerland Dan Clarke – Northern Ballet, Apprenticeship, followed by Estonia National Ballet Maria Engel – Ballet Theatre UK, followed by Vanemuine Theatre, Estonia Rebecca Hartley – Dancer, Disneyland Paris Jade Heusen – Birmingham Royal Ballet Matthew Jordan – Vanemuine Theatre, Estonia Anthony Maloney – Vanemuine Theatre, Estonia Martin Milner – Vienna State Opera, Apprenticeship, followed by Munich Ballet Alicia Nelson - toured with ENB in Swan Lake (June 2010), followed by Vanemuine Theatre, Estonia Gemma Paganelli – London Contemporary Dance School Vanessa Spiteri – Ballet Du Capitale, Toulouse Nanase Tanaka - Singapore Dance Theatre Alexandra Walton – Bratislava, Slovakia Rex Wheeler – Slovak National Theatre, Bratislava, followed by Sacramento Ballet Nanoko Yamamoto – Brandon Ballet, USA Not sure what's happened to last year's list - but I know some are at BRB, Vanemuine Ballet, Tokyo Ballet, Croatian National, Slovak National, Northern Ballet (that's all I can remember for now) And so far in 2012, these are the companies I can remember (I won't do names in case I get any wrong and some have yet to start): Birmingham Royal Ballet Royal Ballet of Flanders Northern Ballet Vanemuine Ballet Company, Estonia National Moravian-Silesian Theatre, Czech Republic National Ballet Theatre, Brno, Czech Republic Ballet Wales (I think!) Royal Ballet School graduate contracts 2011 American Ballet Theatre Jamie Kopit Ballet de l'Opéra National de Bordeaux Austin Lui Ballet Theatre UK Aimee-Louise Cordeaux Bavarian State Ballet Jacopo Bellussi Bavarian State Ballet 2 Antonia McAuley Birmingham Royal Ballet Karla Doorbar, Emily Smith, Brandon Lawrence Boston Ballet 2 Ileana Riveron Dresden Ballet Gina Scott Dutch National Ballet Hannah Grennell Estonian National Ballet Bruno Micchiardi Finnish National Ballet Millis Faust Joffrey Ballet Fabio Lo Guidice National Ballet of Portugal Dominic Whitbrook National Ballet of Uruguay Ciro Tamayo Northern Ballet Sean Bates, Teresa Saavedrea Bordes Norwegian Ballet Grete Borud Nybakken, Douwe Dekkers Paris Opéra Ballet Chase O'Connell Polish National Ballet Roseanna Leney The Royal Ballet Claudia Dean, Francesca Hayward, Tomas Mock Royal Ballet of Flanders Michael Snoey Kiewit Royal Swedish Ballet Calum Lowden Scottish Ballet Sophie Allnatt Singapore Dance Theatre Robin Kent Slovak National Theatre Ballet Samuel Price Slovenian National Theatre Ballet Kenta Yamamoto Tulsa Ballet Stefano Maggiolo Vienna State Opera Ballet Greig Matthew Zurich Ballet Zoe Roberts, Michael Burton, Thomas Kendall English National Ballet 2010/11 Graduating Students 3rd Year Ladies Erina Akatsuka Slovak National Theatre Ballet Maria Andres National Ballet of Portugal, Apprenticeship Anna Bang-Rudenstam Royal Swedish Ballet, Work Placement Heather Dunn Scottish Ballet Elisabeth Finch The Hong Kong Ballet Manoela Goncalves Dortmund Ballet Oda Heier Norwegian National Ballet, Apprenticeship Nicha Rodboon Bayerisches Staatsballet Marina Schmied Ballet Vorpommern Eleanor Sharpe English National Ballet, Apprenticeship Wakana Shimizu Le Jeune Ballet de France Kelly Turner The Ballet School of Hamburg Pamela Nunes Tivoli Pantomime Ballet 3rd Year Men Marc Borras IT Dansa, Barcelona Jonathan Batista Miami City Ballet Guilherme Menezes English National Ballet Vitor Menezes English National Ballet Jospeh Gray Zurich Ballet II Shaun Kelly Tivoli Pantomime Ballet Paulo Osorio Marcilio Tivoli Pantomime Ballet Robin Papazian Slovak National Ballet Theatre Ken Saruhashi English National Ballet 2nd Year Ladies Meea Laitinen Norwegian National Ballet, Apprenticeship Central School of Ballet 2011 Graduates now have contracts with: Zoe Arshamian - Ballet Ireland Lika Berkun - Israeli Ballet Lisha Chin - Singapore Ballet (apprentice) Nicole Craddock - Scottish Ballet Katie Deacon - Ballet Ireland Toni-MIchelle Dent - Northern Ballet (apprentice) Jordi Arnau Rubio - Peter Schaufuss Jamie Bradley - Disneyland Tokyo Luke Divall - Ballet Boyz Dominic Harrison - Scottish Ballet Leon Moran - Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker Alexander Nuttall - Ballet Cymru David Pallant - Ballet Gratz Joseph Poulton - Ballet Black (apprentice) James Pullum - Commercial work William Simmons - Estonia National Ballet

WHSmith still do in some shops, but I gave up a long time ago and have a subscription. Works out slightly cheaper too. (There's always the ROH shop - if you're in the area )

All the final auditions have been held for Elmhurst, RBS, Tring and Hammond and I think all the offers have now arrived. You have nothing to loose however by contacting them and explaining your situation (and why you might not have applied in time for this year) and asking whether they would consider seeing your son. It's not meant to happen that way, but it has been know for students to audition in class. It's unlikely, but if you don't ask, you'll never know.

I thought my memory was playing tricks - ds had guitar and singing lessons for a while - I forgot

Oops - sorry I posted a comment at the same time as Nina G which duplicated so I deleted it, but now both have gone. In my experience of graduates over the last couple of years and this year, most of the Elmhurst and RBS graduates have had one year contracts, with a few getting apprenticeships, and some for 2 or 3 year contracts. My son this year has been offered a 2 year contract. Edited to add: Some of his friends have one year contracts, some have contracts for a short season of performances, one has an apprenticeship. The ones I knew last year who had apprenticeships found it hard as they were only paid per performance, and one of them ended up not doing any performances at all - but had a good experience furthering their training Some of these have been in this country and some in Europe.