Jewel

It is Clause 4 of the acceptable use policy I was referring to. Understandably, members mostly do not wish to reveal their full names so the critical posts can not be made regardless of whether they are first hand experience or factual. “If a member chooses to make highly critical comments this must be done in their own full name and not behind an anonymous user name and email address. ” Perhaps it would be a good thing, in the interests of balance is all posts were generic whether positive or negative, and schools not named at all.

This thread is a very good example of that. Parents are not able to comply with the forum rules when talking about negative experiences at these schools because to do so would identify themselves and their child. So the positive experiences remain and the negative ones are hidden.

I do feel that six times a year is very excessive. I know that my daughter was weighed at another school but it was done once a year in a private room as part of the annual physio assessment by the physio.

The written reports and parents evening assessments from my child’s vocational school far outstrips that of my other child’s academic school (the later being simply a list of subjects with numbers 1-9 relating to current overall level below, on target or exceeding target & a behaviour grade. My child received his last report in February but did not receive anything following lockdown. There is an annual parent’s evening but there are not enough appointments to go around. (You have to book 5 minute slots). The vocational school provides a report for each dance subject following assessments again with numbers but split into categories, plus a written comment from the teacher detailing areas to work on etc. Parent’s evening follows this and I have found that teachers are Frank & comprehensive. A second, briefer report is sent at the end of the school year however that did not happen this year due to lockdown.

Absolutely. My child applied for a place at an independent secondary school and we paid a deposit of £500. Following successfully gaining a place at vocational school we withdrew but were liable (& were chased for) the first term’s fees in lieu. The deadline in that case for withdrawing was the first day of the Summer Term.

It’s swings and roundabouts. For Lower school auditions I can absolutely see that the best thing would be to start auditions later. To give the pupils more time to prepare and next term studio space will be at a premium with social distancing in class/smaller class sizes etc. However for Upper School auditions later auditions will impact much more on GCSE exam preparation.

age 16 by 31st August in England.

Scottish Ballet are not part of the DADA scheme though are they? I think you do have to be 16. You have to be 18 for Acting courses. Some individual colleges will also have minimum age requirements.

Girls in local authority care in some authorities are given more pocket money than boys due to having to purchase sanitary items and black and mixed race children for hair care products as it is recognised these cost more.

My child's year had far less. There were I think about 12 dancers of which 7 had MDS. There were less than 20 in the year group as a whole.

I always thought it rather unfair that girls got exactly the same amount of MDS dancewear allowance as boys did considering the cost of pointe shoes.

Which area are you applying for? It may be that in some areas they can judge the number of places against number of auditionees more than in other areas.

My daughter wasn't even shown how to sew them!!!!!

At my daughter's school the girls were fitted for pointe shoes in the January of Year 7. All daily ballet classes were in flats, but they did RAD classes twice a week. Those who had not passed IF before entering the school (most of them) began work on the IF syllabus which I believe is mainly a short pointe section at the barre with the few that had passed doing Intermediate. In Year 8 they began to use soft blocks for daily classes alongside work on the Intermediate syllabus, with more pointework introduced in Year 9.

How do children go on who have no room to dance in their house? I know we struggled to find a space to take audition photographs in our old house, never mind actually perform any kind of movement!

Now that would be interesting. I did once dye ballet shoes Bright green (or rather spray painted them) so the requirement to have matching shoes would be possible

I’ve just received the annual uniform requirements list from my daughter’s school and under ballet I notice it says Tights (colour of your choice) Canvas ballet shoes (to match colour of tights) Pointe Shoes

All the primary schools in my area opened through the Easter holidays for key workers. The high school staff have been working flat out trying To get the gcse & A level Grades & rankings done.

I don't understand it either. My daughter had one teacher (a female oddly enough) who used to make the boys and girls do each others exercises. My daughter much preferred the male exercises. She even asked if it would be possible for her to do the male rep in an RAD exam (it was but other circumstances meant she never took the exam). But yes, in professional performance the physiological differences do indeed mean that female dancers will never gain the same height in jumps etc as male dancers. But having as many skills as possible can only make a more versatile dancer able to execute the wishes of the choreographer.

Whereas at my son's secondary school the members of the SEN department are making monthly, weekly or even daily phone calls to vulnerable children depending on their need. (my son has had three welfare checks so far plus a call about an ADHD assesment) The calls came through to my mobile phone but they insist on talking to the child. We did choose the school because of its good SEN provision though.

Up until lockdown when my employer bought me a laptop I only had a mobile phone with capped data. Its great for contributing to online forums and going on facebook but you can;t really do proper work on it. We are an affluent family but we struggle with wifi in our house. Our kitchen & my bedroom is a dead area and my daughter has been kicked off numerous online classes due to poor connection. I have been staying up late at night to do my work so that she can use the areas we can connect from for her schoolwork. A 3rd year student we know ended up driving to our house and sitting on our drive in her car with her laptop to connect to our wifi just in order to upload her major project to get her degree. I know several teachers who don;t have the technology themselves to teach online. The provision at your school sounds particularly poor Peony but you are naive if you think that families can just access technology. Maybe in your world they all have smart phones but in my world they certainly do not. Or they have them that are fine just to facetime a friend but try and do anything more like connect to a zoom with more than a certain number of users and it won't cope. Only last week I suggested to a friend of my son's that she record something but she had to admit that her phone won't do it. And as for schools having a bank of laptops, that's laughable. My son is entitled because of learning difficulties to use a laptop for schoolwork and exams. But the school does not have enough to go around. I assume that your £1,000 per year for low income pupils (it's not just based on income by the way) is Pupil Premium. This is what my son's school spend their PP money on External mentors for 1:1 and small group support with emotional and behavioral needs Off Site provision to provide life/vocational skills for those who need them Dyslexia support & training for staff CAMHS support and a mental health worker Teaching Assistants to support PP children Literacy & numeracy support for the lowest attainers Provision of a flexible learning centre for those who need time away from the classroom Software to help track students needs/collate evidence for EHCP's etc Education Welfare liason support Provision of specialist TA intervention co-ordinator post Staffing needed to provide bespoke curriculum for those who need it In previous years they have used PP money to help children access the curriculum by being able to attend trips, music lessons and access to higher education sessions Edited to say that it's not just PP money that is used for some of this, some of it comes from the normal budget but is in the schools action plan for PP children.

It’s entirely different demographics. There was an incident at my daughter’s school with zoom teaching. Being the kind of school it is, senior management were allowed to take immediate & decisive Disciplinary action and I assume there was parental support. It was an isolated incident and very clear warnings were given of a zero tolerance policy. At my son‘s school half of the parents could not care less. There are many students who would not want teachers or others to see inside their homes. Parents and siblings who would not respect classroom rules with regards to appropriate dress and language. And any breaches would not be able to be acted upon.

Whereas at my daughter's school cameras MUST be turned on so that the teacher can see what the students are doing eg that they are not making illicit recordings on their mobile phone. All students are muted and the teacher un-mutes individuals to ask questions etc. But at her school it is easier to enforce discipline. If a student breaks the rules they can be sanctioned much more easily than at a state school. My son's school are not allowed to use zoom or any kind of online provision. The larger class sizes, children with a variety of behavioural issues, parents who may or may not enforce discipline and those without internet make it very complicated. But teachers are allowed to email students via their school email account though, not personal ones.

When schools were asked to facilitate some contact for Year 10 & 12's boarding schools were given no advice on how to manage the issue of having boarders on site and so I believe ther majority, if not all, boarding schools are remaining closed. Indeed, many state secondary schools are not opening for those year groups or just having the odd individual tutorial session.

why Does it have to be Ballet pink anyway? My white daughter couldn’t wait to ditch the awful tights she had to wear when younger which look awful against her pale complexion too, in favour of black or natural dance tights. But she has always detested anything pink with a passion. increasing the choice of colour of tights & shoes & making all ethnicities feel comfortable (& I include adapting traditional uniform for those ethnicities/religions who feel uncomfortable with exposing their bodies in this way) can only be a good thing. Hair is another issue. My white daughter hated how difficult her fringe made getting a neat bun. As a very young child she took a pair of scissors to her own hair and chopped it straight off it distressed her that much. But that is nothing to how some black dancers are made to feel about their hair when dancing. Which is why it’s great if schools can show role models for these children who look like them to encourage them that dance can be for people like them too.