taxi4ballet

Not an easy watch for the ADs and the teaching staff at vocational schools either. I don't think it was a random coincidence, I think the timing of the broadcast was deliberate.

Nothing wrong at all, if the student is up to it. In my dd's case, it was several years before she could even bear to think about dance or performing arts again. She left vocational training with a career-ending injury, and emotionally - and this is not too strong a word for it - traumatised by the way she was treated with such sheer callous indifference.

There are a number of people who, for either physical injury or mental health reasons, leave the ballet world altogether part-way through upper school training. Some upper schools offer A-levels alongside the dance training, most don't. At those, if available at all, it is very much an optional add-on and no provision in the timetable is made for it. As for careers advice when dance is no longer an option... non-existent would be how I describe that.

You are correct. Which can leave students leaving the profession altogether in a difficult position. They have already used up 2 years-worth of student loan, so would have to self-fund part of a degree course in a different field, and won't have sufficient UCAS points anyway to be accepted onto the course. But because they have a level 5 qualification, they cannot access foundation courses or A-levels at their local college in order to top up their UCAS points, which are lower than level 5, but a level 5 doesn't qualify for UCAS points. So basically, they are stuffed whichever way you look at it.

Why does it matter? Because the British taxpayer is stumping up millions to fund students training at various vocational schools through MDS and Dada funding, and a large number of those students do not complete their training, not because they aren't good enough, but because they are failed by the system. As a taxpayer, I want to know why.

Quite. It is extremely difficult to get into POB school unless you are French, and almost impossible to get into POB company unless you were trained in their school. So if POB school can manage to produce exactly what POB are looking for from home-trained talent, why can't RBS?

It is also worth wondering why so many of those who start training in upper schools (not just RBS) and don't graduate because they are shoved aside to make room for twinkling stars coming in for a final polish. How come, after years of training at a supposedly world-class school, are they not good enough to compete with dancers trained elsewhere in the world?

Several years ago I watched a documentary about Usain Bolt. Much of it showed young Jamaican runners during their training, and the difference between that and what ballet students go through was jaw-dropping. They were continually told they were the best of the best, that they were amazing and their self-esteem was through the roof. That's how to train world-beaters. You tell them how great they are, and they respond to that positive encouragement, and genuinely believe they can achieve anything if they train hard enough and put their minds to it. Failure is not an option in their minds, and they go out and win.

It has been a bugbear of mine for some time also. British dancers are prevented from getting jobs overseas, yet they can't get jobs at home either because dancers from other countries are not just welcomed here, but actively sought out. And, as we can all see by the statistics, very few British dancers trained at British vocational schools actually make it all the way through their training anyway. They can't all be the wrong shape or not good enough. There is something absolutely rotten at the core of vocational dance training in the UK.

Yes, but it does beg the question - why did she feel that way about her weight and needing to be thin in the first place?

According to my dictionary, 'offended' means to feel resentment or annoyance, typically as a result of a perceived insult. It is not the right word to describe how girls (and boys too) feel when someone criticises their appearance or tells them they are overweight. They are far more likely to feel hurt, distress or embarrassment, and to take those remarks to heart, particularly when the person saying it is their ballet teacher. The young person will often then lose confidence in themselves, and may sometimes try to do something about 'the problem', such as restricting their food intake to an unhealthy degree in order to lose weight. This issue at vocational schools is not about the unkind things that teenagers say to one another. It is about the appalling disregard that some staff at vocational schools have for the physical and mental wellbeing of the young people in their care.

Does anyone happen to know next week's winning lottery numbers?🤣

Oh really? Well you can only ask for clarification if you know there is a misunderstanding to be cleared up in the first place! What the teacher said to us was as clear as day. As clear as it could possibly be. Except my dd, at that age, did not quite grasp what the word 'potential' meant. She told my dd that she had huge potential to be a really good dancer. If someone told your child that, and you actually heard them say it so there was no mistaking the words, what would you think? Would you automatically know that your child would believe the teacher was telling them they were currently pretty useless but would improve with hard work? No you wouldn't. My child had just been told that she was really good and had the ability to become outstanding. How was I supposed to know that my dd didn't understand what 'potential' meant, and had misinterpreted it?

Oh this! It didn't come out until quite recently, when dd and I were discussing her early dance training. Someone once told my dd in my presence that she had "huge potential". My dd, who was about 11 at the time, did not understand what the teacher was really saying. She took it to mean that she wasn't very good, but if she worked really hard then she could get better. No wonder she had confidence issues...

Offended, no. Self-conscious and hyper-aware of the changes in their bodies, yes. A seemingly throwaway remark thoughtlessly made can, and often is, taken to heart and never forgotten. All dance teachers should know about that. All the more reason for them to avoid criticising the bodies of growing adolescents at what is a highly-charged hormonal time for all teenagers.

Ah yes. The 'food baby'.

I agree that BMI is largely useless, especially for adolescents. My dd was in the 'normal' range until the day she switched from the child charts to the adult ones, whereupon in an instant she went from 'healthy' to 'underweight'. BMI takes no account whatsoever of people's natural skeletal frame either.

That's interesting, because my dd did quite a few of their residentials - Easter and Christmas ones mostly, probably around 8 of them spread over several years, including NYB one year and a Cecchetti summer school as well. She never mentioned anything like that at all.

Your post reminds me of something I witnessed at Tring first-hand. While my dd was still a recreational dancer, she used to attend their dance days and workshops. At one of them, to which parents were invited to observe class, there was a long table in the main building full of tea, coffee, and piles of cakes and biscuits. We had all eaten our fill, and while we waited to be called in to watch our kids, a class of teenage full-timers burst out of their studio, charged along the corridor on the way to their next class and helped themselves to the offerings on the table as they went. It was like a plague of locusts had descended, and there was very little left after they'd gone. I wondered whether they were allowed to help themselves to food laid out for visitors, looked at a member of staff standing by me and she said with a grin: "They burn off a lot of energy, they need it!". That left me feeling very positive that at that school at least, there was a healthy attitude towards eating.

I wouldn't expect any response at all from the King, who is after all only a figurehead (although I suspect that someone from the palace has been seconded to take a look), nor from OFSTED as yet, who would not want to be going off half-cocked without taking a good rummage through their records first.

In dd's case, one element was a monumental administrative cock-up which didn't come to light for over a year, by which time it had caused irreparable damage.

The list I provided was some of what my dd personally experienced. I can't put the rest as it is too identifying.

Lack of support for students recovering from physical injury. Blatant favouritism of some students over others. Highly critical remarks about capability in front of fellow students. Ignoring those students needing support with academic studies. Refusing to discuss issues with parents. Repeatedly cancelling school physio appointments in favour of other students. Proper procedures not being followed by staff and the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. Telling a student that no choreographer would cast them in anything. A lack of accountability. Not referring an student for medical investigation. Closing ranks and a complete refusal to accept any culpability. Point blank denial that they said something upsetting to a student. Accusations that a student 'must have misunderstood' what was said to them (although they denied saying it in the first place of course). Humiliating a student in front of an invited audience of patrons and special guests. I could go on - how long have you got?

I've just read those links posted above. What a crock of ....

You will be pleased to know that although it took my DD five years before she even felt able to set foot in a dance studio again, she is now taking adult ballet classes once more, in a place where she feels safe, where nobody knows her, where she can be anonymous so there is no 'expectation', and she can just enjoy dancing again for the fun of it.