Peony

Being able to defer starting reception for a year for summer term children is a fairly recent thing. They may well not have encountered it before, probably best to ask admissions.

Poor kids, that’s a major upheaval whether coming or going. Might be difficult finding 9 MDS at other schools at year 10 stage too. I guess you can’t judge on one single year group but it seems like a very high rejection rate

Other thing you can try Michelle is anti fungal powder in all shoes/ slippers and tumble dry or iron all socks and tights to get rid of fungal spores. You’re right podiatrist is likely to be the best idea if no change

Michelle if you go to your GP they can take a skin scraping and get it tested to see what is going on and what treatment is needed. Or could it perhaps be a soft corn?

Claudia Dean did PDL before she was accepted by RBS didn’t she? I think they may have offered based on her performance there but can’t remember! @FionaE vaganova, cranko and bolshoi have entered students in the past few years. And SAB

The ofstead reports of the 3 schools available on line are the standard ones done in all schools. The RBS one is described as an ‘emergency’ inspection in response to concerns and is for boarding only. interestingly the standard Ofstead visits were for 16 plus provisions and the schools use ISI for secondary age. They’re not just for the education provision though, they look similar to ofstead with safeguarding and compliance etc. They do also mention the ballet classes and an assesment of attainment. Possibly not in as in depth way as desired but they’ve made recommendations about teaching methods and given info about attainment assessments etc

I guess there could be some independent assessment by non-specialists e.g. grades obtained in syllabus exams/ success at summer school entry/ scholarships/ prizes won, acceptance into competitive entry competitions eg PDL, students accepted for sixth forms and which ones, number passing schools own assessments, number of injuries. When you look at the assesment of academics by ofstead it’s not hugely comprehensive either.

Tring, Hammond and elmhurst all seem to be inspected by ofstead, so presumably a complaint could be made to them as well as DfE it appears that Royal Ballet used to be inspected by ofstead but switched to ISI. The last Ofstead report for them makes interesting reading! not sure how much scrutiny the dance training gets by these inspections as it’s obviously very specialised.

Having to sign a child up for a year seems unfair I agree. Do you lose the entire years fees if they decide to drop out or have a change in circumstances part way through?

Do they get to keep the costumes? I’ve had both scenarios and when it was all ticket revenue based the tickets were considerably more expensive. I guess it’s fairer if everyone pays a set amount plus cheaper tickets otherwise some people will be paying a lot more if they buy multiple tickets.

About £20 per costume and pay for tickets to watch. Presuming your theatre fee includes tickets to watch id say it’s about average

You’ll probably kill freeds quickly until you get stronger, grishko could be good. Bloch have lots of styles for wider, squarer feet too. I’d try Leanne, the pictures from her fittings always look good, which can’t be said for some of the others!

What sort of feet do you have? Although all the brands claim to have a shoe for every foot I don’t think it’s the reality!

I think you need to get the ‘yoga’ ones rather than the running or workout ones. They’re designed for more movement!

Having the same person in the teaching and assessing role is quite tricky I think, in terms of relationship building and impartiality. I’m not sure the roles are that compatible. I also think any sort of filmed assesment is inferior to an in person one. The training depends on what/ how much is online. I like the approach of not having set exercises but I wonder how successful that is in embedding technique in a pupil who participates maybe once a week.

If she wants to go on to professional dance learning both techniques and the different names would probably be a big advantage. ISTD also contains more unset work which could be an advantage when auditioning. ISTD introduces some steps like double pirouette earlier than RAD. The big difference seems to come after grade 5 when ISTD continues to grade 6 and then IF, intermediate etc. RAD has 2 pathways either grades 5,6,7,8 or grade 5 then IF, inter etc. The RAD IF is definitely at a lower level than ISTD. If you ask the teacher I’m sure they’ll just slot her into the class according to how she works in class and I wouldn’t worry too much about what it’s called!

The purpose would be to train to a high enough standard to audition for 16 plus training. on an equal footing. And there are still a reasonable number of their own students who continue into upper school. Whether the training is appropriate isn’t something I can comment on but I don’t think any assumptions can be made on numbers alone. If a school has an international presence and accepts from everywhere I just don’t think you’d expect the majority to come from one small country. Especially as there is less of a language barrier than for some other schools. so no I’m not sure it is definitely an issue with training, it’s the fact that they have a much larger pool of dancers to choose from (which will include many attributes, not just technique). British trained dancers are also being selected for upper schools abroad. I think it’s just more of a global society than previously

Given the small amount of world class schools and the amount of people applying from across the world I’m not sure you’d expect the majority to be British? just based on probabilities and numbers of applicants? If you have a school that re-assesses and takes the ‘best’ at 16 you’d expect them to be international? Some schools do prioritise their own style and the students who have that style embedded but RB doesn’t really do that currently. Not sure which approach is best, RB did at one stage prioritise certain nationalities but times were different

Some schools definitely do this, is it more associated with Russian training methods? I’m not sure how uncommon it is within some circles as there are a lot of year 7s who are far too competent en pointe to have only just started pointe work. The arguments about waiting make a lot of sense to me.however, if you look at RBS they start when a lot of girls are pre-pubescent too so surely their feet aren’t sufficiently developed according to many? Or does it not matter so much if you are handpicked physique wise and are doing enough training to be strong and have good technique?

My cancelled Nutcracker last year was definitely over a month but I’d have to look at the card statement

Very sad, unfortunately probably inevitable at the moment though.

I suppose the problem is that peer mentoring is great for those who want to improve. But in this case the teacher appears to know their behaviour isn’t acceptable because they deliberately change it when under scrutiny. So it’s more a case of trying to prevent them being able to target your child. Senco might help as there will be a plan put in place that can be monitored. Depending on what the behaviour is you could go above the school with safeguarding concerns?

I guess peer mentoring is quite a generic term and is also used for older students providing help/ advice to younger ones (which may also be useful!). In the workplace it’s where your colleague observes and assesses your work and gives you feedback. Everyone involved from senior to junior as a regular thing, not in response to complaints. So for ballet teachers I guess it would involve regular observations of classes by a variety of other teaching staff. If they don’t do that then what do they have set up to ensure quality/ safety etc?

Do they do peer assessment and mentoring in the ballet world? It might be something to ask as it’s certainly gaining popularity in education and other sectors.

Does the child have SEN? If so potentially you could address it through a more general individual learning plan. I don’t think dance teachers generally have much training with SEN so I think you would need to ask for specific accommodations. in any school your child will learn very little from some teachers. I’m not sure how you address it, generally you just hope for a different one next year or resort to tutoring.. I can see that if your child is at a vocational school and it’s the dance teacher who is the issue it’s a significant problem. It also depends on whether it’s just the teaching or there’s an element of victimisation or something unpleasant going on?