annaliesey

Thank you TooTu. I try to listen to the advice of dance parents on these forums who’ve been there and have advice to pass on. I’ve had some great support from forum members privately when things were particularly tough. Stay strong everyone and do what’s best for you ❤️

Absoluely agree with counselling BUT don’t go anywhere where they have to report to “multi agency” (police, LADO etc) as they will take it out of your hands if there is something disclosed as child abuse. In our case this made things 100 times worse. No prosecution and a whole pile of backlash. Be selfish and put your child’s needs and your own needs first

Listen to your instincts always. I’m very distrusting of everything dance these days after finding out my dd was self harming age 12 and she was being hit by ballet teacher. Turns out no prosecution could happen as there’s no crime for common assault if the event was longer than 6 months, even for children. 11 families came forward to try and support a case to DBS but they weren’t interested. RAD and ISTD not interested either if no criminal prosecution and their grievances also time bound.,CDET don’t get involved “in things like that” ... so ... I’m saying it’s the industry as a whole not vocational only. Some are so crushed so early. Since then teachers banded together. People turn against you as think you are a trouble maker because that’s the lies told by the liars. The “dance industry” is full of two faced cowards who lie and manipulate to make a quick buck in my jaded view, some high profile. All whilst telling others “be kind” and “stand up to bullying” and “let’s change the industry”. Yeah - I personally envy those leaving too sometimes. For us we haven’t even got out of the gate never mind “almost ran” (love that analogy by the way) But I know this is what my dd needs to do. To dance. Either on a stage or in a hired hall she wouldn’t care where. I’ll be there ready to say “let’s try something else” just as soon as her love starts to fade because through everything so far she has never once said or shown her love for dance has lessened in any way and I’m looking out for that. She’s lost confidence and performance but not her love. Shes cried over friendships, over sacrifices, embarrassments, hurt from comments and actions of so many nasty adults/teachers and kids, exclusions, but so far has hung onto her passion and determination. All I do know is she tells me not even a quarter of it. I find it on her phone, her Instagram account, or witness clues. She just knows the sensible answer is to walk away and that would be my response so she hides things or down plays things and we keep on searching for better places to train. Luckily she’s got a couple of good constant teachers and schemes. I’ve been wondering over the last year .. Maybe vocational would have been better after all as surely it couldn’t have been any worse. I’m the opposite side to you thinking maybe I should have driven her to a day place when we had the chance. But whoever said it’s likely to be disappointing somewhere else is probably right. good luck with everything

Yes, alarm bells sadly but i thought most degrees had a teaching unit which is what makes me wonder if it’s CPD that’s missing and is it unreasonable to expect these ex-professionals and degree level teachers to have kept up with the times? (dr dance I can almost visualise your words forming) but as a parent I know I would be the minority to not have the attitude this class is nothing less than fantastic urgh

Hi everyone I’m thinking about how I feel about a class my daughter attended. It was a senior class of I guess ages 12+ most of whom do a fair bit of dance in a mix of styles - ballet & jazz the class is freework with warm up, conditioning, sometimes a short routine and from the ones she’s done so far technical jazz. dd really enjoys this class. But, tonight I hear from a stand in / guest teacher they’ve had a couple of times that they are going to be taking the class regularly. No problem there, as I said, she liked it. But .. there was a story told about being tough and that this teacher had to do a performance with an injury. Also they did a plank competition although the teacher did stop them at 3 min 45. And .. they didn’t do a cool down. so obviously we’ve been spoiled with good classes and teachers to even be aware of this. but this is a gentle question and I don’t mean to overreact, to ask does anyone ever get a gut feel that some teachers are those that graduate from college, maybe work professionally, but then don’t appear to keep up CPD to hear these messages that our children hear about not doing certain exercises, not dancing with injuries etc would this concern you enough to do anything? At the moment I’ve just spoken with dd and she volunteered the info to me and rolled her eyes so she knew aspects of the class were a bit poor/inappropriate/inconsistent with other training .. but, she still wants to do the class hmmm. Just thinking. What are your views?

Good luck to your dd for everything in the future

I just read this. Surprised it was rated outstanding by Ofsted in view of the allegations! What a difficult time for student

Another vote for Rosina as she’s helped DD with jazz and ballet pirouettes but I’ve never seen her do anything en pointe at workshops. my dd has a turnboard and will use it for sequences and practise but as someone else said you can’t go on releve on it so it’s a bit limited though she seems to have fun with it

Good luck my dd first auditioned age 8 and our intention was “for the experience” and we were delighted for her when she got offered a place it was a huge turning point for her and she fell in love with ballet after her first EYB this was 6 years ago and at the time the children who did not get their numbers called out and offered a place cried. This was heart wrenching and our first experience of anything like that. There were parents literally clambering over chairs to get to their crying child on stage. Last year dd did another EYB as a senior and after the numbers were called the children not selected were taken into another room and spoken with and I don’t know what eyb staff said to them but when they came out there were no tears. Big improvement from our experience. I’m only telling you this as hopefully this is a new format and if anyone tells you that the audition can be upsetting or harsh, then hopefully things have changed from what I saw last year, my dd has done eyb 3 times and thoroughly enjoyed it every time. As as others have said it’s fairly basic exercises to start with but they get a little trickier as the audition goes on. There are some audition tips on the eyb website too have fun

Re the “chavvy” remark, I can understand the different treatment between private and main stream schools. Even though there is actual legislation under children in entertainment, the rules regarding monitoring and reporting are very different. With private schools, time off is a “commercial arrangement” whereas local authority come down on mainstream like a tonne of bricks. Law should be consistent in my view and not determinedly by social class!

I don’t think it’s required for ballet but I would say yes for someone seeking employment as an all rounder. That’s just going by what I’ve been hearing from people attending dance auditions a trick of some description was required

Daughter did Grade 8 in November and very pleased with distinction. She also said “easier” than grade 7 but she really has to push herself more with performance quality and fluidity of movement exam day pretty odd as i I didn’t know they actually came out of the room then back in again and I shot out of my seat saying “why are you out?” As thought there was something big, also there were other students waiting to go in for exam after her and to be honest that was really off putting for her. For that reason i think I would have preferred for her to take it at HQ as I could see it threw her off a bit. Some of the other girls were quite disrespectful by loudly and energetically practising their dances to music in the very small waiting area. So that was the main thing i would prep for

I don’t know about workshops but dd attended a wonderful class at Pineapple recently. It was Emma Northmores but with a cover teacher and she really enjoyed it (very challenging but great was her words)

Are we talking about whistleblowing? Where reports / tip offs can be made anonymously? i personally that a lot of that is needed to get around the fear of recrimination issues

Yes, same here. Dd went on pointe age 10 then when we went somewhere else the teacher took her off ... oh the shame! Haha but seriously it was the best thing for her for the sake of a few months.

I know, everyone has gone too far with political correctness and acceptance or dealing with things in a behind-closed-doors manner Sometimes we need to speak out publicly or there is no real consequence to people or institutions. Everyone is so worried about libel claims when in reality, they would never make it to court. Even if they did, if it’s based on truth, there’s nothing to fear and everything to gain from speaking out. when we look at the whole #metoo movement there is some huge inspiration there, my personal view anyway. Someone mentioned Deepcut on either this thread or another thread (Nicola H) as reference to the army getting their act together, yet my understanding of that is very different. It was an appalling case of significant and widespread sexual and physical abuse and murder that was covered up in the most corrupt manner and Deepcut simply closed down. There was never a satisfactory enquiry for families. When institutions want to hide things, they will, unless there is enormous pressure. If “they” (government) wouldn’t do things for Deepcut, they sure as hell won’t for a ballet school (Sorry to get political)

I’m thinking that I might end up setting up a dance class directory linked to google maps where you can just search and filter by days of week, times, class type, and have a 5 star review system im sure I’m halfway there already its even worse now the ‘find an RAD teacher’ facility only includes teachers who pay to be included! Needles and haystacks

Ok this is hurting haha and to make it worse, even if I were in your position I can guaranteed our blooming teacher would still clash all her classes... guaranteed!!

Haha sorry to laugh but I think they just really don’t see things from parents perspectives sometimes. I can only assume some have had their fingers burnt with rotten parents over the years that it’s easy to be cynical about all parents (bit Luke we are now with dance teachers!) haha

I don't think he will ever name and shame the school and I suppose if you are writing to raise awareness and for own therapy, you probably don't want that to be the focus, but rather share experiences and warn others what to look out for, what mistakes not to make etc. It's pretty sad how it all unfolds really and I agree with you there should be so much more that should be done - but where to start? It's ludicrous that on one hand there is all this legislation for children in entertainment with performance license fiasco or where you can't even wear an offensive t-shirt, then on the other hand there is absolutely nothing for summer schools, dance intensives, historical physical abuse, dance comps, etc and even where legislation exists there are so many loopholes and just a lot of stinking bad attitudes.

ok I have a confession to make... I went into DD's room once and saw her 'dance drawer' half open with tights spilling out, lots of grinks. I was worried her drawer would break under the strain. She had a lovely pink cushion on her bed so I decided to remove the cushion inside and stuff it with all these grink tights instead .. genious

Haha now you are just showing off!! 🤣

I’m glad you said that. I thought I was going bonkers thinking this way 🤣

Absolutely, that’s why I was posing the question because I’ve lost sight a bit of what’s reasonable and unreasonable and thought it would be handy to gauge experience of others but it is the inconsistency. Maybe when you don’t know anyone at a new school you don’t really hear how/why things get changed but unfortunately now we have heard it

I think that’s superb advice. I need to widen my search to within an hour too as I really don’t mind travelling for the right place / places. We are in on a different location every day of the week which is not ideal but I’m kind of resigned to that now bet none of us ever thought when we sat waiting for our kids in a primary ballet class what would lay in store for us later on! And do I bet there are parents on here of professional dancers thinking pah, just you wait please tell me it gets easier 🤣