Janeparent

I agree that more than all that would be extremely difficult. My personal opinion is that it would be better to take the Trinity Diploma out of the equation, and instead offer three A’ levels alongside the full time ballet training.

I don’t think it’s a free choice from those either, unless things have changed: my understanding was that it used to be either English and art or maths and biology (which seems to have been changed now to geography).

Elmhurst only offer two A’ levels (from a very limited choice of subjects) which, as has been pointed out, isn’t usually enough for university entry. The only place which offers three, with a good range of subject options, is Tring.

I’m very glad she has mellowed.

See my post above! Clearly different experiences of KS!

I totally agree with both of these points. Our daughter received far better pastoral care from some lovely academic staff than from the “pastoral staff”.

Not all of them have moved on. The problem is that however good the official policies are, however well-intentioned the principal is (and she is, at Elmhurst, in my opinion, based on our experience), if the day to day ballet teaching is not monitored or corrected then the actual implementation of any policies is left completely to chance, dependent on the whims of individual teachers.

Just to give a possible warning: I know nothing of the current school, but my personal memory of being taught by this school’s principal, 40 years ago, is not a positive one. Perhaps she has mellowed over the years… Mods: please remove if this breaks the rules.

For any parents of younger children making this decision, our personal (recent) experience was this: our daughter started at Elmhurst in year 7, was desperately unhappy and left halfway through year 8. While the academic staff were kind, her ballet teacher was not: in that short space of time she lost all of her belief in her ability and all of her joy in dance. She was broken and now recoils at the very mention of ballet. Having spent her younger childhood loving ballet and being devoted to it, and showing a large amount of talent and potential, she will now never dance again. The pastoral care she received at the school was laughable: we moved house so that she could be a day student, but the “pastoral” staff are in reality simply the boarding staff, who consider day students to be an inconvenience. She was lonely and neglected. We had many meetings with senior management, at which assurances were made, but nothing substantially changed. I wish with all my heart that we had never sent her there.

Even if the parents decide to remove their child from a school (which we did from Elmhurst) the damage that has already been done can be huge and long-lasting or permanent.

Our experience/impression was that the training at Elmhurst was very far from superb: our child did not make progress in line with their potential before joining the school. Our impression was that the students who made the most progress were those who (against the rules) also had private training outside of the school. I think this is not limited to Elmhurst though and happens at all the vocational schools, as far as I am aware.

This latter point is true to an extent, although the schools can give a misleading impression at open days and during the audition process: we chose Elmhurst precisely because it seemed the most kind and caring, but unfortunately the good intentions of both the principal and the artistic director, which I think are genuine, did not carry over into the running of the dance department, in our experience.

I realise that each child’s experience will be different, and equally valid, but just to share my own child’s experience of Elmhurst and give a different perspective, we did not find the training, the nurturing ethos or the communication with parents to be excellent at all - this applied particularly to the dance department; the academic staff were, in our experience, generally kinder and better at keeping parents informed about our child’s progress. Our child did well academically but was otherwise very unhappy and left during Year 8. They were selected with a few others from Year 7 to appear in BRB’s Cinderella, but I agree that generally the professional performance opportunities (for lower school students) are very limited.

We didn’t ask for that but they are very accommodating so it would definitely be worth asking. They have only been going for a couple of years but are expanding rapidly (and have won some awards). When we were looking it was the closest we could find online to a “real” school and so far we haven’t been disappointed.

Just to add, MVA is run like an online version of a regular school - so they have small class sizes, a head teacher and head of year, whole year and year group assemblies, optional social rooms, clubs (art etc.), a personal “mentor”, regular reports. We have been very impressed so far (child started last September).

My child attends Minerva’s Virtual Academy fully online school (although they have optional in-person school trips a couple of times a term). It is a combination of live online lessons and directed self-study (linked to the live lessons). The live lessons are all recorded so that those students who have training during the day in, for example, sports (but could be dance) can catch up later. The teaching seems excellent and the environment friendly - my child is very happy.

It would have been much better if this was done at Elmhurst. 30 children in a hugely mixed ability class is never going to be ideal for any subject, but the teachers did their best.

I think that’s the point though - our experience was that it was equivalent to a good comprehensive, with all mixed ability classes (pre-GCSE at least) and large classes, rather than being comparable to an academic fee-paying school. For those not eligible for MDS funding the comparison is more relevant.

I think you are correct on this point. I don’t have first-hand knowledge of WL, but my DC was at Elmhurst and although the academic teaching was mostly very good, 30 students in their year group for academics was definitely not ideal. (They were, as you say, split for ballet, though not for other dance styles, but not for academics.) There was some disruptive behaviour, which took us by surprise. Dance-wise, we did not feel that the communication was good enough at all. This was during the height of Covid, but we didn’t get offered any conversation with our child’s ballet teacher during year 7 at all - whereas the academic department at least offered telephone conversations with all the academic teachers towards the end of the first term, which were helpful.

My DC was at Elmhurst until recently (but chose to leave before Year 11) and we had a different impression about progression rates to upper school (in recent years, so possibly the numbers progressing have decreased in the past few years?).

No, I don’t - that was my point: that was why I asked if anyone did have any data. I was conscious that we both seemed to be basing statements on impressions we had gleaned, which clearly isn’t helpful.

Thank you very much, that’s very interesting and answers the question (for that year group at least).

I think I understood you correctly, I was just questioning your assertion: my understanding is that quite a few Year 11 students would like to continue but aren’t given offers. But as I said, I am happy to be proved wrong if anyone has any actual data.

As far as I am aware, it is inaccurate to say that a “high proportion” go on to Elmhurst upper school. This is not my understanding. It would be interesting to know exact numbers from the past few years to clarify this one way or the other, if anybody has these?

My DC was a day student so I was a witness to them definitely doing homework! It was a source of stress for us because it was very difficult, by the time they’d got home after finishing school at 6, to fit in homework and a shower and get to bed early enough for a good night’s sleep.