rowan

At 7.5, my DD hadn’t even started ballet, or any form of dance at all. There’s no rush. But if she’s keen, there’s no harm.

Congratulations, Primrose.

I rarely post in this section of the forum, but I was there last night and was blown away in particular by Apollo, which I found quite mesmerising.

Perhaps not the right place for this, but a very short BBC piece about a Muslim ballet school in London. Instead of working with music, they work with poetry instead- something I’d not thought about before: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-57360361

What do you mean by “enough training”? It’s the quality that matters more than the quantity. Mine did, I think, about 2 hours a day - I can’t really remember now - and quite a bit on Saturday. It gradually ramped up as she got older. She started off doing three classes a week at the start of secondary school and then more. She came home from school (maybe 35 mins away) ditched her school bag, got changed, went to ballet, and came home for tea and homework. There was enough spare time left over for seeing friends, etc, and other hobbies too. Mine did 13 GCSEs - in the days when students seemed to do more subjects than they do now. So it was perfectly possible. The only thing ballet affected was that she couldn’t do an extra twilight GCSE (taught after the normal school day) on offer by her school, because that meant she couldn’t get to ballet in time. However, as I say, it was made easier because we lived close by a dance school with good-quality classes. This is key, I think. If the only thing you’ve got available is one class of RAD grade 5 within a 30-minute drive, that is much harder.

I personally think it’s better to stick with a good academic school and good extra-curricular dance classes. However, it does depend what you have available close by, not just the quality and number of dance classes, but an academic school, or the surroundings. It may be that a vocational school and its environment is a real step-up compared to what you have available for an academic school, or if you live in an insalubrious area with low expectations, or if your child may be at risk in some way. It also depends on cost. Depending on your income, it may be that a vocational school is considerably cheaper than paying for dance lessons independently, unless you can get a scholarship or bursary. My DD’s ballet classes were only a couple of streets away and she went by herself, so there was no travel time involved. However, I’ve known several children drop in and out of the various vocational schools in different years, so it seems eminently possible - although I take the point that if some schools are now guaranteeing a place for several years, there may be less flexibility for new starters in the future - especially if they need funding. If people can pay full fees, there’s probably a lot more options.

I agree with Harwel. I’ve known personally a few dancers whose bios on company websites are not a true reflection of reality. Often details get omitted or things get lost in translation, especially if working abroad. Sometimes this is done by the company itself, leaving the dancer wincing at inaccuracies. Sometimes it’s down the dancer him or herself presenting an edited version of the truth. Or sometimes a combination of both. Eg, one bio may say trained at X top school and then Y top school. Not mentioning that they were only at X top school for one year, and they spent the next four years elsewhere before joining Y top school. Those four middle years get no mention. Or “trained with RBS” really means an associate scheme or a summer scheme. I think it is very common - it’s a “narrative” as was said upthread. Darcey Bussell was at the Chiswick Arts Ed school, not Tring.

Actually, a bit of digging reveals that Central is on the list as a specialised provider. It’s one of several institutions that come under the remit of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, which is specifically named on the specialist list. In that conservatoire are: Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Central School of Ballet, London Contemporary Dance School, National Centre for Circus Arts, Northern School of Contemporary Dance and Rambert School of Ballet & Contemporary Dance.

Yes, Central is not on the list at all. However, the University of Kent is, but it’s not a specialist provider. Central can’t be the only specialist provider that has degrees formally awarded by a different institution.

So, does this mean that a ballet school that offers a degree like Central School of Ballet will be faced with the double whammy of losing funding and also losing London weighting? I have to say, I would have thought that was a specialist institution and would be on the list. Perhaps the list isn’t fully complete.

One thing I was curious about: “10 million increase in funding to specialist providers”. What does that mean? What’s a specialist provider? Does it mean that, say, a music course at a university might have its funding cut, but one at a conservatoire such as the Royal College of Music wouldn’t? Have I missed somewhere where it explains?

Is it a different method that is being taught? Eg, RAD English style at Associates and, say, Russian style in the home ballet school?

Are you in the US? It’s only there that I hear about such long hours of training. 16 hours of dance per week for the intense programme seems a huge amount to me. Even the 4-8 hours for the less intense programme is quite a lot for a ten-year-old. My DD was doing just two classes a week at that age. It should be all about enjoyment at this age - and any age, really. Does she have other hobbies? The environment she is in doesn’t seem a healthy one for her. I think you must prioritise her well-being.

I actually didn’t realise that vocational schools don’t do PE. I suppose it makes sense. My DC were at a normal comprehensive and they did the full gamut of sports and games, with lots of opportunities to develop those more for those who wanted. School sports can leave injuries, though. A friend of mine had her career as a professional musician curtailed very early after being whacked on the hand during hockey at school, which meant she couldn’t sustain the hours of practice needed, even years later.

There’s a couple of things to consider with extracurricular activities: timetables clashing and practice time at home (for things like music). And then you need to leave time for academic work for school too. Plus general downtime, hanging out with friends time etc. For other activities, if timetables don’t clash, would your child be happy to “downgrade” their other activities or not, keep them as a casual hobby? Is it even possible? Are you as a parent willing to fund them? Like others, mine started to drop things around the age of 12-13. DD was at a junior conservatoire for music (auditioned for place) on Saturdays, and then a year later, she got a place at a ballet associate scheme at 11. For a while she could do both because the timetables didn’t clash too much - and the music place let her leave early to go to ballet. They were sympathetic because her teacher had been a musician in the ROH orchestra. But as time went on, the timetables for both changed and it was impossible to do both. The conservatoire needed its music students to spend more time there. DD had to choose, and she chose ballet. We found a new instrument teacher and DD continued to play her instrument at home and school (to lesser degree) but quit altogether at about age 14. It became very obvious which way it would go. DD wanted to do more and more ballet and less and less music. Being able to make a choice like this is quite an important life lesson, I think. You usually can’t keep all doors open to everything, and all choices have consequences.

Parents of older children don’t post as often as those with younger ones, as in general the journey gets harder, dancers drop out, change direction, or “fail” (very much in inverted commas). If your child has stopped dancing, you’re not so likely to come on a forum like this to explain if they, or you, have regrets or not. And I personally am very grateful to hear of all such journeys, as they are really the more likely outcome for most child dancers. Perhaps there is also a point when your child is an adult, and if they want to comment on their dance journey experiences, they can be directed here to comment if they wish. That’s not to negate the parental viewpoint, but it might provide a different view. There are certainly things that my adult dancer child and I feel and think very differently about, and I’m sure there will be things I don’t know about at all.

I know of an American who came at 15, I think, and carried on with the US curriculum online while also eventually getting a diploma in dance. But not my child, so I can’t comment on the details, and nor do I know. Also, it’s worth bearing in mind that in some countries, Germany for one, home schooling is illegal, so a student couldn’t continue with that, I think.

To answer your first two questions regarding time and money: due our circumstances/ luck etc, we didn’t as a family have to spend a huge amount on either while training. Eg, past the age of 11, we didn’t in general need to transport DD to classes, as she could get there herself. The time spent was all hers. We didn’t do competitions etc, and in general could never have done anything that had involved travelling around the country or even out of the city. Regarding how much did it affect family time - I had other children who had their own things going on and who needed attention, so in many ways it was good that ballet took up so little of my time - it certainly took up a lot of emotional and psychological time, though. DD seemed to have well-enough rounded teenage years, even though she gave up some of her other hobbies in order to do more ballet. She still went to parties with her school friends and did brilliantly at school. Do I wish she hadn’t become a dancer? In many ways, yes.

I used to think it was slightly off for schools etc to name their pupils on their school Facebook or Instagram accounts - ie, it was one thing to say they had X number of pupils accepted into this or that, but a completely different kettle of fish to actually name them publicly. However, it seems to be common practice, so I seem to be out of touch with this, and is it any different to naming them on their website? I completely understand that all of this is part of advertising, though, so I sort of see why they do it, but it still makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Regarding Instagram, if you have a school account, your pupils could follow the school, but I don’t think the school should follow any of its pupils. It seems unprofessional to me.

I agree with much of what you’ve said in your longer post,@DD Driver. And when it all is going well, I agree with what’s been said above. But at some point parents must be aware that, for some, the journey becomes harmful, the discipline becomes bullying, the etiquette means not speaking out, doing what you’re good at becomes doing what you’re not good enough at, developing your brain becomes developing self-esteem issues, and hard work doesn’t produce any results at all. And parents may not be aware, because their child might not tell them. When mine was younger, I sometimes used to look at the American ballet forum. I found it hard to believe the huge numbers of hours people were training in dance, on schedules that seem normal there, even for recreational students, but are really unheard of here, the home schooling purely to fit in “enough” hours of dance training, the worry over which level of dance you were in, the insistence on the “essential” very long summer intensives, often more than one, the obsession with YAGP, traineeships, the sheer expense of it all. I thought there was no way my child could ever compete with all that, because all American dance students must be so advanced. I had to stop looking at that site. It was irrelevant to what we could do at home with the resources and opportunities we had. We could do only what we could do.

I agree with everything @Harwel says. Regard ballet as a hobby. Anything else, madness lies. I’d almost say to not wish it upon your child. There can be so much damage done. Regarding potential, as I’ve said before on here, I never stopped wondering if mine had any potential until the job offers came in. (Did not go to vocational school at all, was turned down for everything RBS, never had any private lessons or did a competition or any prestigious summer schools.) We regarded it as a serious hobby in her teen years, and I certainly expected nothing to come of it when she went off auditioning for jobs.

Much of this is true in all aspects in life, though. No one can be provided equal access to every “hobby that some might make a job out of later”. However, in relation to ballet, providing access to good training to those who would never have thought about dance, or been able to afford it, is the purpose of outreach schemes. Mine started dancing through such a scheme. The lessons were free. There were no exams at all. Leotards and shoes were provided. The audition fees for JAs, MAs, vocational school were also paid for for those put forward. However, it is still true that hardly any children on such schemes, like children studying dance anywhere, will go to vocational school or become dancers.

My knowledge of this age group is a few years old now, but I know of two or three who were offered places with only one dance lesson a week, plus a JA class. Definitely no private lessons, extra lessons or any other types of dance etc. They had come from outreach schemes.

You don’t have to do any associates schemes at all, but whether you want to do any or not may depend on the quality and availability of the local classes you have. Mine dropped the scheme she was in and didn’t replace it with any others.

If your DD isn’t happy, I would absolutely give up the place. It’s an associates place. It doesn’t matter how prestigious the place is if it’s not a good fit for her. This is her hobby that she spends time on during her free time. Mine spent a while on an associate scheme but was increasingly unhappy, although doing well there, and gave up her place and was much happier - and still became a classical ballet dancer.