macnatt

Yes Aileen she has come from Australia. She couldn't be happier, she is completely immersed in the London ballet scene now, so many opportunities in UK to participate in Ballet and watch performances. The school she is at is incredibly supportive and nurturing and she is so happy to be surrounded by like minded souls. It is not an easy thing to send your 16 year old daughter off to another country so far away but is was absolutely the right decision for her. She is even picking up a bit of an English accent although I am sure most of the girls in her class would not agree they think she sounds very Australian. I do know she is looking forward to the end of winter... I think that has been the biggest challenge

I was wondering if anyone can recommend a really good ballet photgrapher in London. I would like to get some ballet photos of DD in each of her three years training in London. She is not a natural model like most teenage girls are these days with the selfie revolution, so she needs someone who might put her at ease but also be able to take good ballet shots with technique in mind. I am interested in a mix of Studio and location shots. I think that practising being photgraphed over the three years and also getting an idea of what looks good and what does not might help her in third year when the Audition portfolio pics are taken, and in the meantime I get some nice pictures to keep too

Unfortunately we have experienced the wrath of a ballet teacher scorned and it can be a terrible experience. All the trust both you and your child had in the teacher is destroyed. Our daughter was a favourite in her studio until she was accepted into post 16 vocational schools. There is no other way to describe what happened over the following few months as systematic bullying from a once loved and trusted teacher who seemed to determined to undermine our DD in every way, including sabotaging her exam syllabus. We left the studio when it became unbearable 8 weeks prior to her RAD advanced 2 exam to find out that she had not been taught large chunks of syllabus even though she had been entered for it. Fortunately were able to find a private teacher and DD got her Advanced 2 with distinction in the end. I will never fully understand the mentality behind this, the same teacher demanded that she also turn down the places in the the vocational schools as she claimed she wasnt ready to deal with life on the other side of the world. Well she was very wrong on all counts. I am so proud of how DD has handled herself, not only in the transition to Vocational School and living in another country with a host family, but also how she has assimilated this very negative experience into her psyche. DD understands that it was not a reflection of her at all and it has given her a greater understanding that teachers are human and flawed like the rest of us. I think the experience has actually given her a resilience that is going to stand her in good stead for the future. I have spent alot of time trying to make sense of it, and all I can come up with is that a small percentage of dance teachers have an underlying narcissm and it is their own fragile egos and perhaps their own unfulfilled dreams that fuel this kind of behaviour towards their students. There is an element of financial impetus as they feel other studnets will follow on a path that ultimately leads to students leaving for better training. I have discovered that in our case there is actually a long history of this kind of behaviour and a whole community of children who were treated badly by this teacher and unfortunately some have been turned off ballet for good. I am really grateful that we came through relatively unscathed in the longrun and have taken whatever positives we could from it. We have found many beautiful teachers who helped prepare our daughter for the move to London and have also helped once she got there, so my faith has been restored in the kindness and generosity of most of the dance community.

DD has received a place on selected waiting list... We had no idea that even the summer school was this competitive... 350 chosen from 1600. We will just wait and see now I guess. Luckily we have a few other options up our sleeve as well which don't conflict (date wise) with this one so we can wait it out and if an offer presents then accept it later on. Good luck to anyone still waiting to hear!

I thought I would throw an international perspective in the mix. We have always been very impressed with the level of funding and assistance available to UK dance students. In Australia all vocational schools seem to be privately funded. We have no allowances or loans to cover maintenance costs for anyone, With the exception of WAAPA in Western Australia, which has a university degree and allows students to take out what we call HECS (our name for student loans which only covers course fees). I am not sure if any other state has a classical course in their university, but most vocational or fulltime ballet programmes as far as I am aware across the country are private businesses or private schools and privately funded by parents with hefty fees. From my perspective, our government seems to only be interested in funding sports or academics and the arts are completely underrated and ignored. My dd is thrilled to be studying in a country that seems to have appreciation for the Arts, funding issues aside, the sheer size of audiences and numbers of ballet productions and theatres is testament to the intrinsic value of the Art. Although DD is a British citizen by descent (I was born in UK) we still pay full international student fees and have to fund her accommodation ourselves, but opportunities in UK and Europe are far more abundant than at home. I feel like she has found her spiritual home in London surrounded by people who understand and appreciate her love of ballet, we couldn't appreciate these gifts more even if at home we are living a frugal life to support her dreams. I just hope that one day she will be able to pay her own rent and her dad and I can retire!

I have DD performing at the awards at Sadlers Wells today but unfortunately we cannot go and watch. I would love to hear about the day, the standard and range of competitors if anyone was in attendance.

Thanks everyone, lots of good ideas here and I had a look at notapushymum.com lots of great info there too... almost too much it was quite overwhelming. Picturesinflight my dd is 16.

Hi Everyone, I wanted to find out if anyone can recommend a good musical theatre summer programme. DD wants to have a break from ballet for a week or two over the summer and pursue her other great loves being singing an Theatre. As we are new to the UK I am not sure where to even start looking for a really good quality programme as all our research time has always been spent on ballet. Also does anyone know of any forums like this one that focus on theatre and singing?? Thanks

Hi Balletbabe, I just wanted to weigh in with regard to long travel time, I know in UK 1 hour and 40 mins seems almost insurmountable, but we are from Australia and are very used to long distances, our daughter was regularly travelling 1 hour and 30m mins each way from her fulltime ballet school from the age of 14. Her ballet hours were 8am -8pm (7:30 start really to warm up for 8am.) 6 days a week. She was out of the house at 6am and not home til nearly 10pm. She also did a full load of school subjects by distance education as well. It was a huge transition at the time and her time management skills became finely tuned, but I just want to say that it can be done. Her dedication really proved to me that this was her dream and her passion was real. She is now in a 6th form school in London staying with a host family and many people said at 16 she would never manage being a full 24 hour flight way from home as we are still in Australia, but again she has adapted. At the end of the day if this is your DD passion she will find a way to commute and make it work if this is her only option. You can help and assist her wherever possible, lifts from the station and perhaps doing more for her than you would otherwise, just to give her some down time and lighten the load. She will also make friends in student accomodation or perhaps friends who live near the school and she may be able to bunk in with them a couple of days a week when things get tough. What I have found is that ballet families pull together. My daughter was just taken home by one of her friends for the half term break, what a relief because watching everyone go home was making the homesickness that much worse. Even here at home we had a girl who came from the country she had a two hour train ride daily and I still have her bunk in at our place occasionally even though we no longer have our own daughter here. The worst thing would be for her to spend her life wondering what if? Do the auditions, get offered a place and figure the rest out after that, if it is meant to be it will fall into place. Some schools have internal scholarships and bursaries that you don't find out about until the kids have been offered a place. Put feelers out to all friends and family who might have friends in the area who can offer a room either weekly or even just ocassionally. This is what we did. As an international student without a UK guarantor we could not pay student accommodation monthly they wanted the whole year up front. So we put feelers out through our friends and family and unbelievably they found us a host family who also have a daughter boarding at a different ballet school... things just fell into place. The most important thing is to give your daughter the chance, once she has a place, then you try to move heaven and earth to make it happen. At least if it doesn't happen she will know you pulled out all stops trying but it just wasn't meant to be. On another note our son has also been travelling 1.5 hours a day each way to his normal school since year 8 ... again on the bus at 6:30am and home by 5:30... he doesn't like school and grumbles a bit... but they do get used to it, and all his homework gets done on the bus!!

Thanks everyone for all your advice we have managed to get some good ideas from you all. This forum is such a great pot of shared information

Hi all I know this may seem like a long way off but I would like some advice on good Northern hemisphere summer schools. Does anyone have any experiences that were great, or summer school programmes they can recommend. I am totally unfamiliar with what is available in the Northern hemisphere but am looking for vocational programmes that provide opportunities to meet interesting people, consolidate skills and hopefully have some kind of performance opportunity. My DD is already in a good post 16 vocational school so we are not really looking to find out more about schools, but programmes that might be connected with companies or programmes that have a diverse range of professional faculty are what we are looking for. Macnatt

Hi Lottie, I would be interested to know how many 2nd years made it through to third year last year. Is there the same amount of places available in third year as in 1st and 2nd year? Thanks. Good luck to your daughter Tulip, my dd is embarking on this journey at Central this year but I do feel nervous that it may all come crashing to a standstill prematurely in 2 years time.

Hi Afab, Sadly we are outside the EU as well..

My DD was offered Rambert and we also turned it down. A really great school with a very warm feel just not the right fit for us, but they definitely said at the audition (which was a private Audition of 4 with only 1 British girl) that there were about 4 places allocated to Internationals in the 1st year.

My DD is an international student starting at Central and my understanding is that it costs the school GBP17000 in tuition per year for every student, home students get this subsidised by the government by GBP 8000 so end up paying GBP 9000 (before student loans etc). International students dont get these subsidies because we have not been contributing to the UK economy through Taxes so we have to pay the full cost. My daughter is actually a British citizen and has a full British passport but because we havent been living in the UK for the last three years, she is still considered international and cannot claim any funding, Govt scholarship or Govt Grant. We have to pay the full cost of her tuition. Also most schools only have a set number of places available for International students, so really the competition is extremely fierce as all the international students from around the world may be vying for only a couple of the 20 or so place available. The majority will always go to home students ( and thats as it should be I think). With this in mind the international students are not taking places from home students at all, and the school may also only have a set number of Govt subsidised places to offer home students, so any difference needs to be filled by full fee paying Internationals. It is exactly the same scenario for University places in our country as well.