Ellera

I have had had a couple of emails between 5 and 6 pm. They don't seem to have a very systematic way of sending out the letters, as very spread out how we are all hearing back. Hope you hear soon, and hope it is good news for you. Best of look to anyone else who is still waiting. Lovely post from Pups mum, inspiration for our young people to keep working and keep persisting. x

Our email had come through at 5.15 pm, I only found it an hour ago. No fee remission here either. I am surprised to be feeling quite gutted, even though this was what I expected. Congratulations to those who have been offered it, sorry for everyone who has not been. This has certainly been an emotional roller coaster for all of us. We were so excited when dd had sucessful first audition, as did not think she had much hope. But had no idea of what would follow. Dd is putting on very brave face, despite the fact she really does not want to go to our local high school. We have had a chat about her deciding where she wants to take things next year-I have said we will support her if she wants to audition again next year. But I will be going in much wiser and better prepared if we try again! Thanks to everyone for help and support on this forum-it has made it easier to understand the whole process and helped to know others are going through the same pain. The dance world is clearly quite brutal, only option to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and keep on trying. If keep on trying does not work my dd may just have to be an astronomer, which is her second career choice! Good luck to everyone with their future journeys. Try, try, try again!

Thank you for this, unfortunately the charities seem to have very narrow criteria. I found one that sounded right, but when I emailed them they do not give grants for education at specialist arts schools. But very useful to know about, as many seem to offer support if you get into financial difficulties with fees-so could come in useful in the future. Thanks again. xx

Yes. I have thought about trying to fund raise and have looked at charitable trusts (without any success so far, as they all seem to support community arts projects not individual students) but as you say very difficult to know what to do when you don't know the situation and how much you need to raise. Like you we absolutely cannot raise full fees, and even half fees would be a massive stretch. Just going to have to go with the flow, I have come to the conclusion if it's meant to be it will be, and if it does not happen this year we will be preparing for Year 8 audition. The system feels stacked against those of us without big incomes, as if we were rich we could just go the route of paying the full fees at this stage. It is a shame there are not more MDS awards and charitable trust support available; sadly the arts are not a high priority for Government and this is only likely to get worse after Covid 19. We can only do the best we can for our talented Children, and keep on trying and keep on exploring different routes and options. If we give in to the system because it is so impenetrable, it will never get any better for those in the future. Anyway good luck and good health to everyone, I am sure there will be some good news soon.

Nothing here either. Gut feeling is it will be June before we hear anything. More waiting...........

Thank you for your kind suggestion. I have tried to get info on the reserve list situation, emailed them to ask a few days after MDS acceptance date as they had indicated they could answer queries then. I explained we could really do with knowing as needed to make decisions that would affect our whole family etc. They did not reply and subsequent correspondance said very clearly they would not be able to respond to individual queries. I have also tried to ring many times, and no answer on phones for as we know the school site is closed. We were expecting to downsize our home to help pay for fees, as even with MDS we could not afford them otherwise-we had decided this is what we should do to give dd the opportunity. This probably is not going to be necessary now! Which to be honest is sad, but also in some ways a bit of a relief.

Sadly I think it is going to be a long while until we hear. I am hoping the June date was left on the forms from a previous year, but that is probably very wishful thinking! I suspect there will be a big meeting after 4 June to look at who has returned forms, and then it sounds as though fee remission (bursary is a much nicer word) will be offered firstly on basis of the audition marks. So again difficult to know what chance there is when we have not been told where dc's are on the reserve list. Important however to remember there is always hope, evident from many reports of generous bursaries and last minute offers of mds awards in previous years, so some will be lucky. It is all a painful & difficult process, but I have stopped feeling so stressed about it all. Chance of a lifetime, but not the be all and end all. As others have said, there are many other paths to take. On the positive side, I get to keep a beautiful daughter and a beautiful place to live if this path does not work out. It has really helped to follow this forum, realising many others are going through the same thing, and to be offered the hope and support of wise words and stories of success. Thank you. Good luck. Here is to good news in a few weeks time.

I thought this might be helpful for those who have not received a letter yet. My daughter was applying for year 7-it was a generic email to so maybe sent out to year 7 only?? With others years to follow? This is cut and paste of the letter we received: It was ccompanied by a financial form which requires alot of detail. April 2020 Dear Parents I hope you are your families are keeping safe and well in these unprecedented times. The MDS awards I offered to applicants have now been accepted. If any award is declined between now and the end of August, we will let eligible applicants know. The Hammond finance team, in conjunction with the Dance panel are prepared to look at requests for some fee remission for the remaining applicants on the reserve list. Please be aware that we do not have a scholarship or bursary fund so you would be making a considerable financial commitment were you to accept our offer of a place. We will look at applicants primarily on their audition scores. Only after the panel have assessed this, will our Finance team look at income to judge the amount of fee remission we can offer. I am attaching a financial information form for your completion. Please return this to me electronically as we do not have access to the regular post delivered to school. Once the form is returned, I will pass it on to the team and will have no further part in the decision. Please bear with the Team while they look at our applicants, we are working remotely and things are slightly less accessible than from within school. Once they have made decisions, they will contact you and in the meantime, will be unable to answer individual queries. I do understand the anxieties, especially for parents of children in Year 6 who need to make a decision about which school their child is attending for Year 7 onwards. We will make our best efforts to advise you as soon as possible, but there are many people involved in each decision. Kind regards Denise Charles Hope its of some use, E x

Hi Mummy Twinkle Toes When we went to open morning in September, we spoke to finance and they showed us the scale for the bursary for non MDS award families. 50 percent was given for incomes 0 to 30k with a sliding scale according to income. If you are over 80 k then there is nothing. However I think this scale was for 2019/2020, and from what Denise Charles has said on the audition day it may well be different for 2020/2021. From the letter sent by Hammond this afternoon they will look at applicants audition marks in the first instance, before deciding on financial support based on income. The financial forms and letter came through by email, so hopefully others will get these soon too. Thankyou for kind words from many. I agree it has been quite a poor service. They should be able to respond to individual enquiries even if Covid 19 makes working conditions a bit tricky. I am not keen to go through this process again, my daughter's reaction to it all is to want to audition again next year! Arghh! Sorry to hear of your sad news Mummy Twinkle Toes. Helps to put this into perspective, as my husband would say all this ballet stuff is a first world problem. Important but not fundamental. Good luck to everyone. x

I have just had financial letter and forms come through. I feel so sad, all MDS awards accepted. No chance for my daughter now, as we know based on the figures they gave us at the open day we will not qualify for any financial help with the fees, as our income it too high. But no way we can pay them in full, even if we sold our house. I really feel for everyone, this has been a very stressful time and feel the lack of communication from Hammond has made it far worse. It seems a harsh and inhuman system. There has to be a competetive element to it all, but they could do alot better with making the process clear from the start and supporting families through it. It has come as a bit of a shock to me, I did not expect my daughter to be offered a place at all but we supported her to audition as it was her dream to go to Hammond. We helped her prepare so it would be a good audition experience for her and we wanted her to have aspirations; she worked really hard for 6 months and to our shock and delight she was accepted. The rest has all been a bit of an emotional whirlwind. I wish you all good luck, both those with confirmed MDS places and those hoping to get MDS or bursaries. I hope we will hear some good news for you. Some MDS places may become available later on, fingers and toes crossed. Most important of all-keep fighting. The system never changes unless we do something about it.