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Grishko 2007.

DD's current school doesn't have Adv 2 ballet on the timetable at the moment (though it does for the other disciplines, plus post Adv 2 for Tap, because it is much more common to get through all the grades in Tap by 15 - 17), because of the demographics of the current cohort. DD's peers will probably be the first to do it for some years - but there are enough of them to make it worthwhile unless more than usual leave over the coming 3-4 years. Students without Adv 2 - or in some cases not taken, though learned, Adv 1 - ballet have successfully gone on to the major post 18 dance colleges from the school every year, though. The other 'good' local school, much larger than ours, has Adv 2 (ISTD) as a much more routine fixture on its timetable, simply because their larger numbers mean that flow through to the higher grades of at least some students tends to average out year on year.

They'll have done Adv 2 Tap and Adv 1 Modern by the time they take Adv 1 ballet, so may well leave with the full set of Adv 2.

ISTD not RAD, but DD and her cohort of about 5 'serious non-vocational' dancers will take Adv 1, at a rough guess, in c. 18 months time - DD will be 15, the others 16. If all remain at the dance school until 18, as is normal (its main output is to the post-18 dance colleges - LSC, Birds, Laine, performers etc al) then I suspect some or all will take Adv 2.

(There is free software available to extract sound from youtube clips and convert it to MP3, which is then editable on Audacity or whatever editing software you usually use)

DD has used spoken word for a solo, or rather spoken word with a minimal amount of backing music. I have seen extracts of audio books and also poetry danced to very successfully at festivals too. Youtube is a good source if you have an idea of the kind of thing you want. The only issue, I would say from experience, is that it is VERY hard to cut and edit, so if you need a precise length then it can be much harder to create that with spoken word than with music, where cutting and pasting to shave off or add a few seconds is much easier.

I can spell shoe. Honestly....

Just back from an outing with DD to Dancewell in Bristol, where we had such a lovely pointe shoe fitting that I have been inspired to come on ere and rave about it! It's not very local to us, but had been recommended (and DD had an INSET day) so we made a day of it. It was a genuinely lovely experience, with a fitter who really knew her stuff and was willing to try any number of pairs of different brands to get exactly the right thing (though not randomly selected - a kind of 'homing in' on a shoe that brought all the right features together). She was also lovely with DD, who appears much older than her 13 years but can still clam up like the young teen she is when conversing with an unknown adult. Even I, as a total non-dancer, can see that the shoes she has ended up with both look good and technically 'work with' her feet. Toe darning + ribbon attaching here we come...

My understanding is that the Cechetti grades are roughly the same in 'level', if slightly different in content, to the ISTD Classical Ballet exams. If so, as an indication, 11 year olds at DD's (good, but non-vocational and with a high proportion of dancers who will never dance more than recreationally) dance school would typically have taken Grade 3 and be working on Grade 4 as a minimum. Working backwards (DD is 13 and working towards Intermediate), I think that she and her cohort of serious recreational dancers (so not Associate level) took Grades 4 and 5 at around 11/12.

It's absolutely the norm in DD's (good, non-vocational) dance school. As far as i remember (it's a while ago now) they attend their own grade and the one above from Grade 2/3 level. A grade or two higher and it's 2 classes at their own level and 1 at the level above. At this point, all those from the 'lower' grade attend the same one of the two 'higher' grade lessons offered, so the 'pure' higher grade class will focus very much on the 'top' of the syllabus and free work for that higher grade (it's ISTD so free work from Grade 1) and the 'mixed' one will cater for the crossover between the two grades. So at the moment DD attends 2 Intermediate classes, plus 1 of the two Advanced 1 classes (plus pointe, groups, and lots of other stuff, but those are the syllabus ballet classes she attends. There is another Adv 1 class that is at the same time as one of the Intermediate classes and is reserved for those working on Advanced 1. Works well, and keeps hours up for stamina. It also means that DD has occasionally moved quite quickly through grades when she has known the syllabus well from the crossover class. She averages a grade per year, but sometimes the gap between exams has been a term, sometimes 4 terms!

Cara's post on the straight supporting leg took me back to a conversation with DD (who finds pirouettes hard). She is hypermobile, and her knees hyperextend very markedly (this is the ONLY part of her dancing that she inherits from me!). As a result, in any exercises where a 'straight leg appearance' is called for, she has to actually hold her leg in a 'slightly bent' [for her] position. (If she puts her feet in 1st position, legs together to the knees but then but fully extends her knees, her heels end up a significant distance apart) http://danceinjuryrecovery.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/hyperextended-knees.html look similar This is a real dilemma in pirouettes - if she 'locks' her supporting leg in the way that someone without the hyperextension would, then the supporting leg is strong, and in a predictable position for weight placement for balance but not straight (and my understanding is that putting high strain on the anyway 'stretched' joint isn't great for injury prevention). If she makes it 'look straight', then her leg is actually slightly bent, less strong and it is not always EXACTLY the same extension so her weight position is slightly variable which cause balance problems.

I would agree with others that both the vocational route and the 'adequately serious' non vocational route are tiring. DD (13) is at a normal academic school, and also dances at an adequately serious non-vocational school. She's not going to go down the 'ballet' route vocationally, though a common path for leavers from her dance school is dance college (Birds, Performers, Laines, LSC) at 18 and that is a route still open to her. She leaves the house at 8.15 am and gets back at 4.15 2 days a week, 5.15 - 6 following sports training / matches 2 days a week, and is picked up early straight from school 1 day a week for a singing lesson. She then does her homework, eats, and goes back out again for between 2 and 3.5 hours of dancing every night. End time varies between 8 and 9.15. When there isn't additional dancing at weekends (or when there isn't anything academic on - she's currently doing masterclasses in an academic subject she's gifted at), she sleeps, clears the week's homework backlog, does additional art. Then she starts again. 2 half terms out of the 3 she dances at festivals, so it is only the 'main' holidays that she gets a proper rest. In some ways, a vocational school might be 'easier' for her, at least emotionally, because it is the competing demands of the different strands of her life that she finds so very tiring (she's one of those nauseating people who is highly able at sport, arts, dance and academic subjects!), and the fact that each of those strands can't always understand why she isn't putting them first.

(The only thing is that as she plays 3 sports for school as well - hockey and netball in the winter, rounders in the summer - she must have a vast number of 'approved sporting activity' register marks...)

DD's school records it as 'approved sporting activity' (like a sports tournament away from school) so she doesn't even have an absence code, let alone an unauthorised absence! They're really good about it, tbh, but then only 1 of the 3 annual festivals is in term time.

Ask around to see whether there is a local 'adequate tutu maker'. Where we are, there s a local maker and the dance school costume person (also does lots of other stuff, but is the one who whips up e.g. new group costumes) can also maker perfectly adequate tutus with stretch tops and lots of layers of net skirts that lie almost flat for not much more than the cost of materials. A sort of halfway house between 'proper' pancakes and the type of thing you have linked to.

Been interesting reading this as ISTD IF & Intermediate don't need soft blocks. Both contain pointe work done in pointe shoes (very little in IF, obviously more in intermediate), other work is done in standard soft ballet shoes. Similarly DD has always done ballet classes in soft ballet shoes, and pointe class in pointes. They do introduce pointe very, very gradually, though - it seems odd [to me] to need a specific type of shoe for the transition between one and the other in a different exam board. Those 'in the know' - does the RAD use of soft bocks for the earlier vocational grades have a definite advantage over the use of soft shoes by ISTD for exams of a similar level? Does it make eventual pointe work stronger / better in some way? Or is it the usual case of 'good teaching of sound technique within whatever syllabus is what makes the difference in the end'?

Lion bun nets are great. Our dance school buys them in bulk then sells them on very cheaply indeed from the school office - might that be an option elsewhere?

Oh yes! That was me just before the festival that took place over half term. Ditto bun nets. I would recommend small independent Chemists .....

Do you have friends - or at least speaking acquaintances - amongst the mums at the new dance school? If so, it might be worth finding out what products they use, as IME in a 'bring your own makeup' school some things are genuinely flexible (foundation), some things don't vary by brand but must be the right colour (genuinely black eyeliner) and some things are laid down in informal dance school law without anyone ever writing it down (the specific make and shade of lipstick). When DD started doing festival groups when she was quite little, a mum of a slightly older child ran a demonstration of the approved hair and makeup styles. We started off getting DD very similar brands to those. The Boot No 7 counter was great - DD doesn't have sensitive skin but I have severe eczema on my hands, so the assistant was extremely helpful in identifying both products that wouldn't aggravate my skin too badly on brief exposure, and application techniques that kept my contact with everything to a minimum when I applied it. DD has quite a lot of Rimmel stuff now - decent quality but doesn't break the bank.

(I would also say that different festivals have different 'cultures' - this week's one is my absolute favourite of the year - well organised, well run, immaculately timetabled for sensibly-sized classes in a clean and welcoming venue, and with dancing of a very high but not unattainable standard. I mean, watching a class with 18 in it, of a uniformly enjoyable standard but where any of 9 or 10 dancers could be placed, is much more fun for me that either a class of 8 with the winner obvious from the start, or a class of 25-30 where half are very poor.)

Agree. This is also a festival week for us, and it's a great and friendly experience. Very, very few of the participants will go on to dance professionally - but each will gain a lot from performing, succeeding and failing (and keeping their faces for both) and mixing with others who share their love of dance. I particularly love group / team classes - absolutely the best of the festival world. I can see that for those on this forum whose primary goal is to achieve as professional ballerinas, festivals are largely irrelevant. But for the vast majority of 'good recreational dancers', they are a little glimpse of that world of performance, of striving, of getting feedback both good and bad from an unknown 3rd party, that dancing wholly within a single dance school doesn't give.

However awful the e-mail, I would agree with others that the best course of action would be to rise above it for the moment, but store it for further use. I think in your position I would be trying to flush out the reasons for this decision. The best way to do this might actually be to tell them all the possible reasons that they could have - and explain a way of solving each or why it isn't valid. That might short circuit a whole series of communications in which you trade issues and possible solutions,. So: 'I can understand that you may be concerned that you do not have supervision for X while her peers are doing this option. However [insert solution that you and DD come up with - library, doing work at back of class].. Another reason that you might want to refuse this request is X's grades and their potential positive impact on your statistics. [Explain Progress 8 measure, and why her remaining subjects will give her the maximum points in this anyway - in fact it would be better to get REALLY high marks in these key 8 rather than jeopardise them by spreading effort too thinly.] I appreciate that you may wish not to set a precedent for other students. However, you will have a limited number of students who devote Y hours to an extra-curricular area which they intend to make their career, so the precedent set is very limited and easy to explain.' etc etc. You are basically challenging them to either state that their reason is none of the above (do try to include all the reasonable-sounding options, so any other they come up with has to sound absolutely daft) or that your solutions don't work. It also makes you sound TERRIBLY reasonable, which will stand you in good stead as you refer this higher. Definitely governors once you have worked out WHY they have refused.

It may be because the school has 5 genuine option blocks that the combinations are possible. Even if a student chose e.g. Drama, PE, Music + extra-curricular dance, they could still choose History / Geography and a choice from 3 languages in the other 2 blocks,. plus 2xSciences, 2xEnglish, Maths - a perfectly respectable, academic spread of 7 core academic, 4 more practical qualifications Whereas in a school with only 3 proper 'options', I can imagine that they would want to avoid all of them being taken up by performing arts / sports GCSEs.

DC's school (highly-perfoming comp, catchment includes two high quality, large non-vocational dance schools) offers Drama and Music in a couple of option blocks so that you can do both. Dance is offered as an extra-curricular GCSE outside school time. You can't do Art, Music and Drama - that is actually the only 'non permitted' combination (presumably due to the very heavy coursework load in all 3), as you can do Drama, Music and Textiles, plus extra-curricular dance GCSE. Or Drama, PE, Dance (outside timetable) and Music.

Aileen, agreed. DS is most likely to do Maths, History, Economics as his core 3 A-levels, and possibly Further Maths, Music or Politics. As far as we can see at the moment, it doesn't rule out the History route but widens his choices in other areas.