Dreaming

hi I hope that this is allowed. I have just seen the advert for the Spring Masterclass at Elmhurst with Celine Gittens and Shuailun Wu on Sunday 3rd March 2024. My daughter went to one last year with Brandon Lawrence and had a fabulous experience. The web site confirms "This is an exciting opportunity for dancers aged 15-19 to participate in an immersive set of workshops led by Principal Dancer Céline Gittens, and Artist Shuailun Wu from Birmingham Royal Ballet. Céline and Shuailun will each deliver a ballet class focussing on virtuosity, followed by a repertoire class based on the characters of Kitri and Basilio from Don Quixote. After the sessions, there will be the opportunity to ask Céline and Shuailun questions about life as a professional dancer." Events | Elmhurst Ballet School

We were lucky enough to be invited to the opening night reception. The CEO of BRB said that 60% of the audience had never seen BRB before and 40% had never seen the ballet before. I think she said about 20% had never been to the hippodrome before but I am not so sure about that statistic. It is clear that the project fulfilled the brief and justified the financial contributions from various trusts and the Arts Council. The fabulous choreographers were so unassuming. We spoke to Raul reinuso (act 1) and he just said how wonderful it was to work with Carlos. The reaction of the audience spoke volumes. What was lovely is that the usual reserve of a ballet audience had gone and there were whoops and cheers at every opportunity. You could see the difference it made to the dancers who were clearly loving every moment!

The following information is available on the ICO web site. Accessing pupils' information | ICO (I have highlighted an important section in bold). Firstly, anyone with parental authority can request access to a child’s education record under education regulations. This would cover information such as; the records of the pupil’s academic achievements as well as correspondence from teachers, local education authority employees and educational psychologists engaged by the school’s governing body. It may also include information from the child and from you, as a parent, carer or guardian. In England, schools are regulated by The Education (Pupil Information) (England) Regulations 2005. Those with parental authority can apply to the school to view an education record or receive a copy. Importantly, this right only applies to all local authority schools, and all special schools, including those which are not maintained by a local authority. Independent schools, academies and free schools are not obliged to respond to a request for access to a pupil’s education record under this legislation. In addition, independent schools, academies and free schools are not obliged to respond to a request for access to a pupil’s education record, although they can choose to do so. You may also want to consider a Subject Access Request. A general Subject Access Request is wider in scope and would include all data that is processed by the school. This would include all details on the educational record as well as other correspondence. Technically, a SAR can be submitted by any person with parental responsibility but unfortunately it is not as simple as you may think. The best interests of the child should always be considered but the overriding principle is that, even if a child is young, their information still belongs to them, and it is the child who has the right to access their information. On receipt of a SAR from a parent, the school must therefore consider whether the child is mature enough to understand their right to see their personal information. If they believe that the child is mature enough, they can reject a request from a parent and only respond if the child submits a SAR themselves. Guidelines suggest that a 12 year old is generally considered to be able to make a request themselves. The school may also try to rely on the exemption that organisations have in that they do not need to provide the data if they believe that complying with the request would be likely to cause serious harm to the physical or mental health of any individual. It may be worth trying to counter any attempt to reject the request on that basis by explaining why the provision of the information will not have an impact on her mental health. I hope that helps.

This is heartbreaking to watch. Whether the schools caused or contributed towards the mental health issues and eating disorders, it is clear that there is a lack of ongoing support available. Unfortunately, the programme is just the tip of the iceberg. My DD was at a very small dance school and was badly bullied to the extent that she started self harming. She was told she had thick thighs. She was told she had bad turnout to the extent that she would never dance properly. Water was sprayed on her face whilst she was having a panic attack. She was told to stop self harming and take her emotions out on her dance. Having moved schools, she is now a fabulous dancer but the mental health scars are still there. Exactly as is reported in the BBC programme, the teacher justifies the bullying by saying the dance world is competitive and by saying they were treated that way, and it didn’t do them any harm. Clearly it did some harm if the teacher see this as acceptable behaviour. Perhaps the teachers need support too on how to break the cycle?

Thanks Janet - I have been a long time lurker! 😉

HI. Just a quick message to let you all know that tickets for the dreams performance have gone on sale on the Birmingham Hippodrome site.