KeepDancing!!

Fingers crossed for those still waiting! I wonder does it seem that they are sending out nos first this year? Hope those who havent' heard have good news coming, Was Birmingham after Manchester?

Really sorry to hear of the nos. Hope all your DC are ok. Don't give up as others have said. Keeping fingers crossed for those who are still waiting on results. x

I'm glad to hear she is ok. They have to be so resilient, dont they. Which audition was after Bath? Hope to hear of some good news for balletco dc soon. x

Sorry to hear your news Allnewtome. I hope your dd is ok.

Wishing good luck to all the parents and DC waiting on audition results for vocational schools this year. Hope to hear of lots of successes in the coming weeks.

Hello Nadya - I see you have already had many helpful answers to your questions. I am interested to learn more about what it is about ballet that has drawn you to it? As you say you have always found ballet inspiring and beautiful I am guessing you will have watched professional performances and seen that both male and female dancers wear close fitting costumes in order to display the dancer’s lines and to allow freedom of movement. As ballet is an art form that uses the body to create beauty the body has to be on display - the body and how it moves, (defying physical possibility in some cases!), and the story and emotion conveyed by the movements, is an integral part of ballet. It is great that you now have an opportunity to take ballet classes. In terms of what is usually worn it is true that the regular ballet clothing is leotard and tights – and that this is very much for practical reasons as others have said, e.g. the teachers need to see that the correct muscles are working in order to ensure the student is performing steps correctly and safely. I am sure that if you explain your concerns the teachers at the prospective ballet school can answer specifically any questions you have regarding what can be worn there, and help you find a solution. Good luck with it all.

Yes, I was reading those bios of the international scholars a few days ago by co-incidence. Was quite surprised to read his statement yesterday in light of the amount of competitions they had all entered and won medals at, and also according to these bios been selected by Mr Powney to be an International Scholar after he saw them at said competitions.

RBS do take people into older years than their age sometimes. The person that Anna C was talking about above who got a full scholarship to join the upper school from YAGP is 14 and started upper school in September at RBS. This would mean they are in fact the age group of Year 10, which is two years younger than students entering upper school from White Lodge who are the correct age for year 12.

Hi ReadyforCoffee So I take it your dd will be 15 / 16 when you move her next year? At that age in the UK students apply for Upper Schools if they want to train in classical ballet full time with view to getting into a professional company. She would need to apply this coming academic year for Upper schools, schools open their applications from September usually, with all info on their websites. There would be application forms, photos, and potentially a video to submit, before an initial audition, after which some are invited to finals and some aren't. After the second (final) audition places are offered. The main schools I know of are Royal Ballet School, ENB school, Elmhurst School, Central School in England. Also Ballet West which is Scotland I think (?) Students start these courses when they are 16 after completing GCSE's and most courses offer A levels or equivalent for academic schooling. Hope this helps.

I remember reading on here that this year there were 2 girls from original Y7 cohort of 12 who had received the full 5 yrs training at white lodge were taken into US this year, along with a few girls who had joined for y10 or y11 having been recruited from abroad. I think the thing some people have been complaining about is that the students recruited from abroad are more advanced and have trained more intensively as they are homeschooled and do 5/6 hours a day of ballet, at least the competition winners who have in previous years been recruited.

In terms of the other point, relating to RBS recruiting from international competitions etc for upper school, possibly at expense of their own trained students from Lower school, I would guess the reason people feel 'energised' about this is that it appears to be contradictory to their training methods at lower school, which it has been noted are slower and more measured than the training so many international trained students receive in those years. So is the question being asked, why is their training at lower school level like that, when they recruit students for upper school who are more advanced technically as a result of more intensive training?

A good point you made here - so I thought I would check on YAGP results page. In fact at YAGP Paris finals 2018 (which took place last winter) there were four full year scholarships given by the Royal Ballet school at the competition to prize winners, 2 of which were full time acceptance into the upper school. I wonder what has changed in the space of 8 months, with regard to recruiting from YAGP, as they were definitely recruiting from there last season?

If they are saying they are not recruiting from competitions that don't align with their own teaching ethics, best practices and that they consider to have healthy and age appropriate criteria, does the fact they are not recruiting at YAGP this coming year imply that YAGP is one such competition that doesn't align with their teaching ethics etc? If so, it seems contradictory that they have offered a place to a high profile YAGP winner from last season to start at the upper school this September a year early, who has been widely publicised as saying they train upward of 40 hours a week (which is probably nearly double the hours most UK vocational students of 14 are doing) .

Yes, it seems totally relevant. Basically 99% of the students taken into WL at Y7 entry are JAs, (excepting international applicants). Therefore these are the students selected by RBS as most appropriate for their style of training at that point. If those students are then trained by RBS at White Lodge and or the Upper school but are not making it through to the final year of Upper school training (where they would be denoted with an * in the programme) what has happened in the meantime? Was it that the original selection process, which deemed them the most appropriate for their training, was wide of the mark? Was it that the training the original selectees received over their time at the school resulted in them no longer being appropriate for the final year of the school? Something else?

Yes. One of the things that struck me is that anything including an email with the name of the person in can be requested as personal data, although names of anyone else who could be identified would have to be redacted before it was sent out. This would be an absolute administrative nightmare. In terms of the auditions thing, they must have a way of keeping records of people at least for some time, not just as numbers, because they can offer reserve places quite some time after auditions take place. Also, currently people do ask via their dance teachers for feedback from JA or MA auditions, so the data must be kept with a name on it. Realistically if they haven't done anything regarding this by the deadline in May anyone could demand all their data from auditions, couldn't they??

It just struck me today (having had yet another GDPR related discussion at work) are there any implications for this with the whole thorny issue of audition feedback from dance schools? If they hold the data/information relating to an auditionee are they now liable to hand that over upon request or be in breach of GDPR??

Hi Hoping someone could help whose DC has traveled to the states to do any summer intensives. DD has been offered a place at a summer intensive in America this summer which is great, but it does ask you to confirm you have health insurance. As we don't have that here does anyone know what can be done to ensure suitable cover is in place for the summer school? Thanks in advance.

Hello Could someone with a DC at elmhurst lower school tell me how many hours of ballet a week they do there? Also, is there any way of finding out which upper schools Y11s graduate to? Thanks

Thanks for all replies. This year the initial email came saying short waiting list, then the email last week when they were closing the list said selected waiting list. either way I have been told by royal the list is closed now, not December, which is fine. It was more I wanted to see if anyone had ever been on something called a top select list, as I had heard of someone who said their dc were and this list closed in December not October. Perhaps they were confused? Perhaps, as Harwel said, there was some blurring of lines going on. All I know for sure is it is photo time again!

I wonder if anyone can shed any light on whether there are different categories of waiting list for Associates (JAs or MAs)? My DC was put on the waitlist for MAs this year and I was told there was no order to the waitlist by the woman in Royal office, yet someone else has told me they've heard of people being on a 'top select' waitlist for MAs. As the waitlist closed recently (I and others I know whose DC were on the waitlist were emailed by Royal saying they close it at the end of this half term), I was also interested to find out that someone who has this 'top select' waitlist has not been told it has closed but that it will stay open till December. I was interested to know if anyone on here had direct experience of this 'top select' category, i.e. if a child has been offered a place from the waitlist were they in this category? Does it stay open till December? I have asked the associates office at Royal direct but they have again said there is no order and the waitlist is closed. Thanks!

My daughter has attended summer and easter Ballet Boost courses in the past and both were fantastic in terms of content and teaching from Emma and guest teachers. Would definitely recommend Emma's back to school course.

So out of the 30 or so finalists through the normal audition rounds they only took 2 people and they were not from the UK?? Which I guess means the only UK people they took were from White Lodge and the rest were international competition winners who were given places outside of audition rounds, and then two other non uk students from the auditions? Wow.

Last year at WL I believe one girl was offered a place in year 9 from finals and I know that another girl was taken into year 9 last term - she was an MA. I don't know about year 10 but 4 or 5 were assessed out and have been replaced, whether that was from summer school, finals or abroad.

Thanks pas de quatre. Does the class teacher have any input re the audition, or just assessments

DD was at the MA London audition yesterday for year 9 Entry. Wanted to ask how it works to take in new people to MAs as spaces are already filled by current MAs? Is it the case that in some instances if the panel wanted to take a candidate they might assess out a current MA? I have heard this but didn't know if this was actually how it worked. Seems pretty harsh!