rowan

I really feel the pain and disappointment expressed in the above posts and my heart goes out to you and your dancing children. My child has never tried for vocational school so I can't speak from personal experience, but it really is the case that people turn down WL for other vocational schools, or in fact other non-vocational schools. People have to pick the right school for their child and that school is not necessarily WL, despite its prestige. Some people just agonise over which place to accept and might only finally decide at the last minute, and also some pick what they think is right at the time because it is the "best" school, only to flee soon after.

Mine got into Associates without being super-flexible - I didn't even realise they would test for flexibility, but they did test for it. At the time of audition she could do front splits with one leg, nearly there in the other, and nowhere near in box splits. But a couple of years of constant stretching at class has got all three nailed!

Wow, that's interesting regarding Central, janice and ellen!

Ballet schools in the UK tend to be affiliated to one or other of the big boards. This does have the advantage of knowing that the teacher is qualified to teach dance, at least to a basic level. In other countries they have the opposite problem where just anyone can hang out a sign and call themselves a dance teacher and you have to take pot luck at whether the training is any good or not. Methods of training like RAD or Cecchetti, etc, are perfectly valid methods, but I do think the exam system can be a bit of a stranglehold on both pupil and teacher, as Pas de Quatre indicated. But the exam system is the way it tends to be done in this country, and that is what is expected by parents and pupils alike. I certainly felt pressurised when I looked around and realised that most children were doing exams and maybe my child should be doing exams too. However, if you look on the mainly US website Ballet Talk, you'll see that over there that many would regard doing exams in ballet as odd and counterproductive.

You don't need the exams, whether they're RAD, Cecchetti or anything else. My child has never taken any and I did ask the Associates teacher if it mattered and the answer was emphatically no. Most children from abroad won't have taken exams either. Re the RAD grades - I'm sure someone will know more than me, but I believe that there only used to be five grades plus the majors, and only relatively recently did the RAD add on grades 6 to 8, which are aimed at recreational dancers.

YDA's fees are on a par with many a London private day school, and considering you get the dance education too, and a top quality one at that (or a dance education with academics thrown in as well) it seems good value (for those that could afford it anyway, which we sadly can't!) I have to say, though, I've always found ballet schools to be keen to help out with bursaries, free lessons or, at the very least, staggered payments.

Two children I know who went there had full scholarships - didn't pay anything at all!

Is it harder now for international students to get student immigration visas?

YDA also didn't use to assess out, but I think they do now. DD knows someone who had to leave.I think it is eight pupils to a year. That sounds almost too small. What if you don't get on with anyone? Another London vocational day school that oddly doesn't get much mention on this forum is Arts Educational in Chiswick. I know a child who chose this over White Lodge, and they do offer some scholarships or bursaries..

To be honest, I was a bit surprised to find out that children often audition several times, yearly even. I know the schools like to say children develop at different rates, etc, and they don't want to discourage anyone from re-applying, but it had never occurred to us to do this. Perhaps I'm naive! And I think it's worth remembering, re associates places, that some children at vocational schools (not WL) also have RBS associates places that they go to at the weekend. I was taken aback by that when I first learnt that a couple of years ago!

I truly believe it's healthier all round to consider ballet training as a hobby for young people, rather than thinking about where it might end up as a career. The chances of success are so small, and the financial rewards are out of all proportion to the costs of training to learn. It's best to to think about what the child is getting out of learning to dance now, at their present stage in life. If your child is at vocational school, perhaps you are right to regard it slightly differently but for the vast majority, mine included, I think it's true.

Belljul's points are very sensible, but I don't know about "No one can tell a child not to apply to a school." The teacher surely has to sign the application form at the very least in support of the application. Teachers can be put in an uncomfortable position with parents brandishing a form and the teacher not being keen to sign, or in fact absolutely refusing to sign, rightly or wrongly as they may be. I've seen this happen. Surely then you simply can't apply or do you apply without the teacher's signature and nobody really minds?

I didn't see Strictly Baby Disco but I'll admit there is an addiction in our house to Dance Moms, which DD watches with appalled fascination. I cannot comment on issues of technique etc, but I have to say I am sometimes impressed at both the flexibility and sheer confidence of the children. As for the little children on pointe all over YouTube, yup, depressing.

Kiwimum, your DD clearly held her own despite being next to the "brilliant" American girl! Well done to her.

For boys, becoming too muscular can also be a reason for being assessed out. I have known of children whose parents decided not to take up a place at vocational school, including WL, because they didn't want to put themselves and their child in that stressful situation.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for your DD, Primrose!

The ballet teachers I've encountered along the way, who have all had professional on-stage ballet careers, have all been quite a lot smaller than me; I'm 5'5". Yet a couple of years ago when the Bolshoi were performing at Covent Garden, DD and I came across a couple of their dancers trying on leotards in Bloch! They were so tall I was quite taken aback, probably at least 5'9". They were wearing high heels on top of that, though, and were in full stage makeup, which added to their look of being an entirely different species!

I do remember someone on the old forum - and I hope it's not bad form to mention it - who said her/his child had been assessed out of White Lodge halfway through the first year because the RBS had decided their legs weren't long enough. The child didn't go to another vocational dance school and became a happy recreational dancer.

Well done, Julie's DS! I'm curious, though - does the school actually help them to audition, tell them what's available and what they should go for? Or do you have to do it all off your own bat?

The problem is that how do parents know if what the ballet teacher is saying is right or not? You'd like to think that a ballet teacher always knows what the right thing is, but as Primrose indicates, they often might not, and a child who's keen on ballet wants to do what the ballet teacher says, and often not what the parent thinks is good for them.

I'm intrigued by thequays' comment too. I wonder how much facial beauty does matter. I remember being somewhat shocked when DD's teacher indicated that it did matter. After all, I thought, aren't they all covered in makeup and the audience in general aren't close enough to see dancers' faces? Beautiful body, yes, but the face? I found that hard to understand.

As the person who started this thread, I think it's gone slightly off the topic! I think a separate thread should be started on both abuse in ballet schools, and even, as Stardancer's post suggested to me, the difficult conditions and facilities in which children are studying ballet - or are trying to study ballet! These are both important topics, I think. (Edited to add last sentence)

Small arches and long backs are, I'm afraid, not silly things in the ballet world. They are majorly important! My DD apparently has the physique that makes ballet teachers dewy eyed but lacks somewhat in "performance". Her teacher said she simply would not get into RBS because she was a late starter in ballet and wouldn't compare well with other girls. I'm sure there are some girls out there who can be accepted with very little previous experience - and the RBS does say you don't need any experience in ballet - but my DD doesn't have enough of the other X factors! Her teacher entered her for MAs and she was placed on the short waiting list, but nothing more. It's probably worth noting that even when children leave RBS, I believe that their places aren't necessarily filled by other applicants, even though the RBS sees hundreds of keen and talented students every year. (Edited to make font bigger!)

I was thrown by Fiz's 10-3 as well! For a moment I thought you meant weekday daytimes and the kids just didn't go to school! Anjuli, very interesting. I've never come across a breakdown of lesson progression like that before. The only other guidance I've been able to find is that for the CAT scheme nearest to me, I think the children have to do a compulsory six hours of dance a week, not including the time at the CAT. It was a couple of years ago that Iooked into CAT schemes, so I might be wrong. My issue is that DD wants to do more ballet and I think she does more than enough, about 15 hours a week at just turned 14, spread over 6 days. But she knows people who do much more than this, admittedly adding in other dance forms as well. A basic ballet class for DD is 1 hour 45 mins, though other classes, like character, would be shorter. I'm afraid that I get "the look", Spanner, if I suggest less ballet and more homework!

Two questions I've been wondering about for some time, so while the forum is up and running, I thought I'd get the questions asked! Why do forms for summer schools, etc, ask how many classes/lessons are taken a week? Isn't that a bit of a "how long is a piece of string" question? Surely it would be better to ask about the number of hours spent dancing in a week? Don't the length of the lessons vary according to age of child or the school? Are there any guidelines about how many ballet lessons / hours a child "should" be doing a week as they progress? How much do children at vocational school do? I've heard that children at vocational school do about two hours a day. Is that right?