BalletBelle

My daughter is applying for upper school places; I'd be interested in resurrecting this too

@ScottishballetmumMy daughter has been offered a place but we won't know about funding until March

My daughter's Tring audition was on a Sunday and her result was emailed on the Wednesday lunchtime

Yes, they told us during the presentation on my daughter's audition day in January. They said that 1st years don't travel but that 2nd/3rd years do - they sold it by saying that it was good experience of what it's like in the real world lol!

Does anyone know how funding works for students that stay on at the school - from Y11 into the upper school? Does their funding get carried over? And does that mean that there is less funding available for new students into upper school?

@Adagio123, my daughter's was on Wednesday 18th Jan. We were told it would take up to 12 working days to hear... today is the 10th working day. I imagine you will hear soon

The emails for the semi-final results for upper school (Y12-14) have started coming out... we received ours just before 9am. Good luck to those waiting to receive theirs 🤞

I totally agree @DreamChaser, I didn't appreciate how exhausting it would be for parents! It's not just all the travelling and form-filling; my head is spinning with all the information, pros and cons of different places etc too 🤯

Hi @Hayjon I have a 15 (nearly 16) year old who is currently auditioning for diploma places ☺️ so we're also going through this process. It's not easy on the nerves is it?! Happy to chat And good luck to your DD for Sunday and all her other auditions

Hi I don't know about Y7 entry - but for upper school, they wait for all the semi-finals to take place before inviting dancers back to the finals. If you're in the first semi-final, it can feel like a long wait... (although it's actually only 2.5 weeks 🤣) Good luck - I hope you get the result that you want

Very interested in this as my DD is in exactly the same position!

Slightly off topic but, if anyone has applied to Elmhurst upper school, how long did it take to get a response from your initial application/video/photos?

Thank you, lots of positive comments - fingers crossed for Tring CBA. It's so hard when you don't know how many available places they were all auditioning for.. hopefully they will email soon so we know, one way or another. They said that they 'aim to email results within 2 weeks' and the audition was 4th June 🤞🏻 DD's dance teacher know the RBS associate programme well, but doesn't know much about either of these.

Hi, My daughter has recently auditioned for both these associate programmes. We've just heard that she was successful in her BBO Scholars audition and are still waiting to hear from Tring. If she is lucky enough to be offered both, she will have to choose as the lessons clash. Does anyone have experience of either? Or both? Which would you choose? We'd be grateful for any insights and/or advice. Thank you

In our school scores get read out in class by the teacher - everybody knows everybody else's marks. But that wasn't really a debate that I wanted to open up. My query was really about what proportion of RAD distinctions awarded are for marks 90+, and therefore how difficult are they to come by. In our school they seem to be very common - the downside of which is that those with scores of e.g. 84 aren't as delighted with them as they might otherwise be... that led me to wonder where those scores of e.g. 84 might sit outside the small bubble of our dance school.

Thanks Ms Sunshine, it's good to have an idea what to expect. My DD isn't used to having to do improvisation....she's very anxious about it.

Hi, Does anyone have any experience of the junior National Youth Ballet final audition process? All the information that I've been able to find so far relates to the senior/main cast auditions. My DD has got through to the final stages as a junior but it's the first time that she has ever done anything like this so I was wondering what she should expect in terms of the format for the day. If anyone can shed any light on the process and what she can expect, we'd be very grateful. Thank you.

Thank you! From what I understand, please correct me if I'm wrong; - DDs' dance school does seem to get very high results - higher than the 'norm'. - But progress through grades doesn't seem to be any slower as the dancers are still at average age for their respective grades. -Despite how our dancers feel about achieving marks below 90, their results are extremely good and higher than the national 'norm'. Thank you for sharing your experiences and knowledge with me. As i said in my original post, sometimes it is really hard to know what goes on outside the bubble of our own dance school and so it's really easy to lose perspective.

Thanks all. Our dance school does an annual show - almost the whole of the autumn term is dedicated to it. A lot of the dancers also compete in local festivals. So there is a reasonable chunk of time devoted to non-syllabus work - although perhaps it helps the dancers get better scores for the performance elements of their exams? General feedback, so far, seems to be that the school's results are comparatively high? The teachers do seem to only put dancers in for exams if they are confident that they will get a distinction. Although progress doesn't seem to be especially slow to me.... DD1 has just turned 11 and will be taking her RAD G4 exam in June. DD2 is 6 and will be taking her RAD Primary exam in June. I just assumed they were pretty average ages to be taking the exams?

This might seem like an odd question, but what sort of results are 'normal'? I know that the RAD website shows proportions of distinctions, merits etc. but understandably it doesn't show whether those distictions are marks of 76 or 95. My DDs go to a dance school where RAD Ballet exam marks are nearly all distinctions with just a smattering of high merits. Dancers (girls and boys) regularly receive marks well into the 90s. In fact, a couple of years ago, one dancer even achieved 100!! How 'normal' (common, usual) is it for dancers to gain marks as high as this (I don't mean 100, I mean 90+)? The reason I ask is that, having received a set of exam results yesterday, some of the dancers felt disappointed and upset to "only" receive marks of 82-85 - because their friends achieved marks of 94-97. Dancing at a school where such high marks are commonplace every year, means that we all lose perspective over what is 'normal' and it affects expectations. There are very few dance schools in the area and we are the only one who do RAD graded exams (the others - still 10 miles away so not next-door, do ISTD ballet) which means that our dancers find it difficult to relate their marks to anything outside the bubble of our own dance school. I have no idea whether marks in the 90s are quite unusual and difficult to come by ...or reasonably commonplace and a significant number are awarded across RAD schools every exam session... My own feeling is that a score of 82 is a really good score - it falls well into the distinction category. I am not complaining in any way - I feel very lucky to be part of a dance school that clearly teaches and prepares the children so well. I am just trying to improve my own knowledge and understanding. Can anyone help put things into perspective?