anneeliz

Thank you aileen, that is very sound advice. Much appreciated.

Thanks for all your replies; much appreciated. I will follow up the ideas suggested. (DD is 12, btw and would like to go to ballet school at age 16.)

Hi, We are looking for a ballet teacher for our DD. Does anyone know if it is possible to find out which teachers in a particular area regularly get their pupils into ballet school?

Thank you for your replies. My inclination is definitely to wait until her teacher has seen them and get her to mark where to sew them (even though my DD wants me to do them straightaway now, if not before!). There do seem to be a variety of different possible places according to the individual's foot.

My DD has just got her first point shoes (Gaynors) and I'm about to sew on the elastics and ribbons. We thought the elastics would be in the usual place over the arch of the foot and the ribbons a bit further back, towards the heel (i.e. the opposite way round to the above post)? Now I'm not sure what to do!

She is doing IDTA. I need to look into the associate program possibilities.

Thank you to all who have contributed with advice; it is very much appreciated.

We are going on holiday now, but I will be happy to read any more comments when we get back!

DD is currently doing 1 class per week (plus helping with the lower grades). She definitely wants to get into a ballet school (actually she wants to go right now, but that is not an option!) and she wants the private lessons. Her teacher has said that she thinks she has the potential to pursue ballet as a career and needs these lessons because it is so competitive. We would like her to go to ballet school if that is what she really wants (and she does seem to) and don't want to close her options down now. What we really would like to know is if we said no to these lessons now, would it mean that she is much less likely to succeed?

Thank you to all of you who have replied so far; that is very helpful to me. Not knowing much about ballet, I didn't know if it was that competitive that these lessons were almost crucial for DD to get into anywhere at 16. That was the way it seemed to be presented to us anyway. I will look into the Associate classes.

My DD is 11 and in a grade 4 class. Her teacher recently asked her and 3 others in her class if they would like to have private lessons with her, presumably in preparation for vocational school at 16 or ballet school. I would like to know if this is a normal thing to do and how necessary it is at this age. The lessons are really too expensive for us and would involve travelling quite a way two or three times a week (on top of her normal class).