Kerfuffle

In answer to the OP perhaps you could have the account to start with and let her choose her favourite images of her pets, flowers, art work, maybe thd occasional performance photo. I guess more like what you’d post as a parent on Facebook. Nothing wrong with that as far as I can tell! Keep it private of course and on your phone/laptop etc. She’s young enough for you to be able to control the account.

Interesting discussion here! I think it’s great if you can delay the use of social media as long as possible. Kids are very tech savvy and often have “spam accounts” as well as the one you might know of. Unfortunately though at 13 (official age) a child can be at her most self conscious - this is pretty much the age where the problems with body image kick off. My DD’s non dancing age group often have different potentially dangerous habits, Tiktok accounts where they are dressed in just underwear and mouthing along to explicit lyrics. These are just as dangerous. It’s so easy to be sucked into the web when you’re feeling insecure for young dancers and young people in general. Also as they get closer to applying for post 16 training the young dancers do get increasingly aware of how competitive their field of study is and I guess it’s only natural that they are curious to see just how good other dancers are who are their age but this can really damage their confidence as no one posts the time they fall out of pirouettes etc . I think that the ambassador obsession probably fuels this a bit. I guess that there will be images of your child in their dance wear posted by their school from time to time so it’s hard to have complete control over their image. Hopefully by keeping accounts private they are mostly limited to their age group. I do sometimes wonder if vocational schools ever look at these public profiles on social media.

I would agree with you about how those successful schools might feel for non JA students. I guess that the school then fuels the problem, the JAs and their parents are made to feel like they are in a different league to everyone else and then it becomes inevitable that they get the best profiles on social media . I suppose also that they are under the tremendous stress of auditions for full time schools at 11 which can’t be easy. In hindsight we were lucky not to be in that atmosphere. Perhaps the best judge of how the school is is what happens from year 7 onwards, when vocational training sorting hat has happened and things calm down again. It’s all down to the individual teachers at the end of the day, less about the name and fame of the school, social media reputations being rather unreliable.

Sometimes the high powered schools have disproportionate amounts of kids in top associates (RBS) and also dominate the festival scene. From what I’ve observed this can make a school seem impressive but it’s not always the best place for the individual dancer. It might just be that that school is more clued up when it comes to putting children forward particularly at the JA stage but doesn’t really guarantee good teaching (especially since so much of JA success is based on physique). I would look for a school with a lot of keen teenage ballet dancers in particular if you want a good ballet school - my DD’s previous school put on wonderful shows but scratching beneath the surface it became obvious that the emphasis was far more on modern and not ballet. One of the modern teachers often made derogatory comments about ballet in coaching lessons. Also just a few families dominated that school - they had a huge influence on who taught there and sadly some really good ballet staff were lost because their DDs didn’t get on with them, partly because they were so used to being considered the best that they resented a teacher who was honest with them about their ability in ballet. We had to move to somewhere that put ballet first and haven’t looked back since.

Also remember that your child’s physique will change as she grows so don’t be put off by a no. In the meantime make sure the local training is as good as it can be as this will proportionately be the majority of the input to her dancing skills.

What kind of training did she do? My DD stopped at intermediate RAD so she would get UCAS points if she ever needs them and also to help her with summer school applications.

This is so true. I felt under a lot of pressure to keep my DD taking these exams but even with vocational grades she seemed to be being held back with its limits. She has gained so much strength as well as flexibility having switched away from RAD. Music exams can also be restricting in this country and we are amongst the few doing them.

It’s a frustrating situation if you feel compelled to offer exams that you don’t enjoy teaching and under pressure from parents. You have my sympathy! It’s also a real shame that the RBS new programme is prohibitingly expensive.

My DD also said that one of the downsides of this rigid exam syllabus only way of teaching was that every time pupils moved up the whole class would be held up with them having the set choreography taught to them. This doesn’t happen in free classes as everyone is in the same boat, being challenged to learn new routines. This also makes them much better prepared for auditions, as they are used to learning quickly.

How interesting that you found RAD exam syllabus soul destroying too! The best teachers my DD had in her old RAD school gave them opportunities to do some of their own choreography and used other music/steps but there was still always the need to go back a learn the set exercises which made it rather tedious. Some of the coaching in the classes before exams was so formulaic that instead of responding to the music it was reduced to counts. I think this was such a stunting approach to musicality. You can see in professionals how they dance through the music, it’s what makes them truly mesmerising in my opinion. She finds the Russian approach particularly inspiring as a result.

I agree that it seems like some kind of arms race these days, especially if you look at social media. However, I also think that until your child has come out the other side of puberty it’s hard to know if they will have the right body to be a professional ballerina, so much changes! I think that it’s probably better not to get fixated on just one form of dance before your DD has gone through this important stage. Also as children start secondary school there is definite drop out rate in ballet in particular from what I’ve observed - the ballet classes become noticeably smaller in comparison to modern/jazz/contemporary. Perhaps part of it is how well they adapt to pointe work, which is crucial to ballet. Your DD will probably benefit from some conditioning but I think having a good basic technique is the best start. Try not to worry and enjoy the journey!

This new approach to recreational training sounds like a great idea, particularly if it involves free work weekly. Doing exactly the same exercises to the same music is very boring for a lot of children and off putting too, especially highly creative ones. My daughter was RAD trained for 10 years, always did very well in exams but was very happy to change to a Russian school where she has different music and exercises every week. She finds this much more stimulating as she has to think and remember the choreography at every lesson and also I think it enhances her musicality as it’s no longer robotic repetition, she is fully engaged mentally. We were warned against stopping the RAD exams by nearly everyone but I think this was the best decision for her, she enjoys ballet so much more and she has also greatly improved as a result . In my opinion we are too obsessed by the exam system in this country and forget that ballet is an art form. I think it also encourages children to be too competitive about the results and this can create a bad atmosphere in dance schools. Just my opinion and understand that others probably won’t agree with me!

I’m a bit puzzled about how banana feet are nearly always described as being weak - my DD’s feet have very high arches and insteps and are extremely strong - they look exactly like banana but when pointed are rigid. Don’t get put off if your DD isn’t successful the first time auditioning for RBS - it is purely on what they see as potential which either gets fulfilled or doesn’t later on. My DD was unsuccessful in a JA audition and then made it into SA, probably because those feet were spotted! (She also has sway back knees but seems to be in the minority in her class for this).