Babyballerina

Moomin the classes are invitation only from the teachers, those who are showing that they may want to train at vocational level in the future. The associaate programme is audition only. Thank you all for the advice. My DD is torn as she loves the teacher she is dancing with but is bored. She showed me some of the work they were doing in class last night and said I did this in September in JAs! I'm not so bothered about the grade or taking exams its the fact she is doing the same thing week in week out. She has such a passion I want that to continue to flourish. The school is very small and is evenings and saturdays only. I asked if the teacher would consider doing private tutition with my DD but she has refused as she doesnt have time (she is the sole teacher) Some of the older girls did their exams last week, so why couldnt my dd do her grade and then move on?? My answer was she needs to stay with her cohort.

Not too bad £5.50 per class. The more classes you do the cheaper it is!! Thankfully!!!!!!!!!

The school that I have been to see is also a college and is now offering degree courses from september. They have offered for my dd to do a junior ballet class for an hour as well as the elite juniors along side RAD 3 and private tutition if we want it. They have also offered her a place on their associate programme. The classes are small no more than 10 in a class.

She does 2 45min classes one of them is grade 2 and the other is grade 1

Thanks everyone. My DD isn't sure what she wants to do, she loves the teacher she has now but is getting bored. "I'll do it if I have to" She shouldn't be saying things like that. She's happy when she comes out of class, its not that shes miserable going in, she's just fed up of the same old thing every class. It would be great if she could do the Grade 3 in parallel but the teacher won't go for it at all. The older girls don't want her dancing with them!! The teacher thinks I'm being 'pushy' and should just leave it to her. she just can't see that she is bored. Another little girl joined the class yesterday and they had to start the grade all over again so that she could catch up??? (She has been before but left 6 months ago) I think it may be time to move on.

Thanks for replying. It wasn't her current school that got her in JAS it was another teacher who sadly moved away. I have spoken to her current teacher and she says that she cannot do the grade 3 class but she can do the grade 1 class for extra strength training. I did approach her as well about stepping up her classical training in year 5, which is what the RBS JA teacher has recommended we do, but was told that this won't be necessary. Its not so much the grade its the waiting around for her peers to catch up. If we stay at the current school then she will have to stay with her peers throughout. I'm not sure that this will benefit her, she has such a passion for ballet and just don't want the waiting around to affect this passion.

Wow thats fantastic. How old is she? Is it age and grade specific or do they accept children for audition no matter what grade they are studying?

Our litle girl is 9 years old sheis grade 2 RAD at the moment. Is this age appropriate? She has been doing the same grade since last October. Her ballet teacher has said she is more than capable of taking the grade now and moving on up but she has to wait until the rest of the class is up to speed with the work. I may be October/November before they are ready!! My little one is already getting bored of doing the same thing at every class. Advice greatly appreciated. She is an RBS JA. I have contacted other schools in the area and they were looking at starting her in grade 3 and do exams twice yearly if the student is capable. Where she is at the moment is very small the schools I have spoken to are larger so will be able to accomodate this. Thank you in advance.

Hi, we will be looking into summer schools next year, so reading all this has been great Thank you. Just a question, Do the children have to be at a certain grade for the summer schools or doesn't this matter. My little girl will be 10 when we apply next year but at the moment is 9 and in grade 2 RAD

Thank you so much for all your replies. My little girl also does an hour of modern and an hour of tap throughout the week as well as the hour and a half of ballet. My concern was that she wasn't getting enough ballet. I have no experience of dance at all and value everyone's advice.

Our little girl is 8 years old and has recently started to train with the Royal Ballet junior associates. She is training with RBS for 2 hours most weeks. It is the training outside of this time that is worrying me. We removed her from a dance school that insisted that she should be doing RAD interfoundation syllabus at 7 and that she was nearly ready to go en pointe!!. Their attitude was do the classes or go. The dance school she is in now is quite low key and has only just opened and her training has gone down from 5 hours a week to 1 and a half a week. She thrived whilst doing the 5 hours a week and now going to class can seem bored!! She loves the RBS classes but says she spends time waiting around for the other children to catch up at her usual dance class. Advice please, should i move her again or not. Is the hour and a half a week enough for her to stay up to speed with the RBS class? Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you all so much for all of your comments. I have spoken at length with the principal of the school and she has said that dd is more than capable and that they will be using the time for strengthening her muscles and working on core strength. However after speaking to her istd ballet teacher, she is not at all happy but said she doesnt want to get involved, I can understand this as the principal and the interfoundation teacher are on board with dd doing inter foundation and she is the one saying it isn't a good idea. Pointe work has not yet been discussed properly although when dd looked longingly at the older girls pointe shoes she was told it wont be long! We have decided after reading all of your post and messages to stop inter foundation and let her concentrate on ISTD and more importantly to have fun. So thank you all once again your advice has been invaluable.

A big thanks for all your advice , every point brought up has been most helpfull . What started out as a bit of extra curricula activity for our daughter has got slightly out of hand . Whilst we initially looked on it as just fun for our daughter it quickly became apparent she actually does have potential to take things a lot further which is when things became complicated ! Whilst the other parents where at first friendly enough it soon became apparent that the majority see it as some sort of competition to achieve grades etc at the earliest possible age and seem to have lost sight of the fact that the main priority is children dancing and having fun . Within a couple of lessons the principle of the school informed us of her excitement at our daughters ability and took it upon herself to arrange private tuition at the expense of the school which again is very flattering but once the pushy parents found out it has led to more complications . Our daughter has the ability to pick up moves in an instant and thus has outgrown her age group by some margin which is both good and bad as it gets her away from the bitchiness which was gathering momentum but now she is in with 13 year olds who also see her as a threat ! It seems we were looking through rose tinted spectacles when we first started , fortunately our daughter is pretty thick skinned ! She has been doing full on inter foundation and finds it more fun than the basic lessons and is still picking up technique in a couple of goes , however , we do worry at the severity of some of the moves on her dainty little joints . All her teachers are very highly qualified and we have total faith in what they are doing ,we just feel they are maybe a little too enthusiastic to bring her on as early as possible as she is also doing an associate scheme which again she seems to take in her stride with ease but again we cant help but worry about those skinny little limbs ! Our 9 yr old daughter competes in athletics and the boundaries seem far more defined with regards growth , age , ability and level of exercise . Again any views would be greatly appreciated .

My little girl is 7, just in year 3, and has been dancing since Dec 14. The teachers say she has a talent and she is just about to take ISTD grade 1, She does Modern as well. The principal of the dance school has put her into inter foundation ballet class too. We are new to the dance world, my husband races motorbikes! All of this is very confusing as she has different ballet teachers for ISTD and Inter foundation. The inter foundation teacher says she is more than capable as does the principal but the ISTD teacher says he will get hurt and she is too young. My LO is hyper mobile though to what extent we are unsure as this is from the principal of the school not a medic. Are they taking things too fast to soon. Does anyone have any experience of this with a child so young? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.