spooky

If you do need a 'normal thickness' leotard in a flesh colour you can always use tea to dye a white one. Gives excellent results with cotton lycra but not with nylon lycra. Does not even loose colour with washing. My dd has several fllesh coloured 'bodies' but prefers the thicker cotton lycra ones as they do not slip against the costume ontop but cling to it - slippage can definately be a problem in partnering work on lifts as she found out once! Also remember much amusement having to call grandparents and ask them to bring dd's 'body' to the theatre as we had forgotten it!

I know many people have said about phone calls the same day for MDS places but I know someone who got a year 8 MDS place (several years ago now) and notification was by post TWO WEEKS after funding audition - she was never told she was on a waiting list and indeed knowing all the details I know am sure that this wasn't the case.So don't make any assumptions until you have actually heard from them!

Luckily my eldest dd is in her last year of training but her youngest sister, currently year 11, wants to follow the musical theatre route. We have decided she will do A levels first so she can have two more years of free education and I have told her that she will have to chose a degree course because of the changes to dadas. She was quite upset as has had her heart set on Laines for many years now but now am not sure she will even be able to do one of her first choice degree courses. because although they can access student loans in many cases they can only borrow £6000p.a. towards fees and a lot of places e.g. Urdang, Arts Ed, Mountview are charging £10,000 to £16,000 p.a. fees! Apparently these colleges are still classed as private institutions even though many still take applications through UCAS!

I would say wear whatever she feels most comfortable dancing in. It will make no difference to the outcome of the audition - the schools are not going to be influenced either by how clean the shoes are or whether they are split-sole or full-sole. They will be able to spot a 'good' hard-working foot regardless of the shoe and will almost certainly look at them in bare feet as well anyway. It is always a good idea to present yourself well so if she decides to wear the old shoes make sure they look the best they can but don't stress about it. On they other hand if she feels happier to wear split soles a week of wear around the house and a couple of classes should be fine to mould them to her foot. More important check elastics are well-sewn on, don't worry about it and tell her to just enjoy herself - good luck.

Like others we do not have a driveway or garage and have to park our car on the road like many of our neighbours. We all know each others cars and those with driveways are happy for others to park across them if no other space is available - I even park on my next-door neighbours drive at times - we just knock and ask people to move their cars as neccessary. The problem is we are 10mins walk from the mainline station (50mins into London) and, due to the high cost of station parking, a prime area for commuter parking. If we leave the house early in the morning a commuter car appears almost instantly and we know it will be there until the evening and frequently we find cars parked for a week at a time! I realise I have no right to park outside my own house and don't mind having to park a short distance away although carrying a shopping load into the house is a pain but I really feel for my neighbours with toddlers etc. Our parish council is currently monitoring the situation as the commuters park outside the church which is just up the road which causes huge problems when there are funerals/weddings on (currently the church warden has to put cones out at 5.30 on these days and some people just ignore them and park anyway) but if they introduce resident only parking it is going to be quite expensive to get a permit. Taxi - if your neighbour moves into the space infront of your house doesn't that leave space infront of his house that you could use?

My dd fractured a metatarsal in Oct of year 11. We explained the situation to the schools we appplied to requesting the latest audition date possible but we also obtained a letter from our GP explaining the nature of the injury and that once healed she did not believe there would be any long term repercussions. The schools were all very understanding and she was offered 3 funded places from 5 applications so I don't think it would matter unless the nature of the injury was likely cause problems in the future.

The Hyelm hostel I know of used by lots of Central, Urdang and LSC students (before they relocated) amongst others is in Hampstead not Hammersmith unless there are two with the same name?

Central is a degree course so ALL students offered a place are eligible for student loans just like uni.

It is only a 5-10 min walk from Chancery Lane to Central unless you get distracted looking in all the Hatton Garden jewellers windows! This is the route my dd takes every day and there is a Costa which you will walk past on Hatten Garden.but also plenty of other places for coffee in the vacinity. For shopping head to Covent Garden/Oxford St either by bus from oppsite Central or approx 15-20min walk,

Why don't you buy a pair with the regular shank so that she can break them in quickly before the exam. Realise they may not last long afyerwards but would probably be best for confidence.

Sorry for causing some confusion. The 50K cut off was only a guess by Laine and each element of the dada is assessed separately i.e. fees and maintainance are completely separate. I wasn't thinking about schools with boarding included in the fees. We are in the position where we didn't know if it was worth the expense of auditioning if we wouldn't be able to afford a place even with a dada. Talked about this with the staff at Laine who i must say were very open not trying to 'sell' their school at all and even suggesting other places which they felt offered the same standard and type of training. They agreeed that it made (financial) sense to take advantage of free a level education locally and said it made no difference to them if students were 16, 18 or even older when they started. In fact only 25-30% of their first years are 16 but this is for musical theatre not ballet. Hope this post does not appear out of context I wrote it several hours ago following post#11 but forgot to hit the post button!

I went to the Laine audition support day a few weeks ago with youngest dd and they were saying that as yet the schools have not been told how the new system will work exactly or how much money each school will get. They did say that they expected the upper limit cut off point to be in the region of 50K although this was only a best guess. There will still be a maintainance grant element again on some unknown sliding scale but there will be no loans except career development loans which they do not recommend as these have to be repaid as soon as the course finishes regardless of employment status. They also mentioned that for every college you apply for a dada at you will have to supply detailed financial information. apparently they had asked for some sort of centralised administration but so far this has been refused. The bottom line seemed to be if your household income was likely to be over 50K you would have to pay the full fees AND all maintainance costs. Think we have decided not to bother auditioning this year and dd will go to local sixth form to do A levels and then try for places at 18 when she can also apply for degree courses (musical theatre).

A single rose. Florists will sell them wrapped in cellophone with a container for the stem so no need to stand in water which is good in hot dressing rooms. Otherwise anything fairy-related would be appropriate. When my dds did their first panto they had silver jazz shoes for the walkdown and I was able to get those minature keyring jazz shoes in silver. Youngest still has hers on her dancing bag 8 years later.

Have just spent the weekend with my dd and nearly had a fit when she 'prepared' a new pair of pointe shoes - satin cut off the toes and edges superglued to stop fraying, then she appeared to remove half the sole with a stanley knife - apparently they were shown to do this by ex-RB principle. It reduces the step where the sole meets the satin and then she levels out the sole to improve balance. All this before they were actually 'broken in'. Oh and she also calamined them,

Cannot be sure of this information but I have been told that RBS students do not actually 'graduate' until they have managed to secure a contract. This would make sense of the 100% employment rate. As has been mentioned previously many of the contracts new graduates gain (from all the schools not just Royal) are short-term or only for a certain production as well as the apprentice positions which at least Central is honest enough to state as such.

I've never heard of movelat before. Have looked it up and see it is both a painkiller and anti-inflammatory. Does anyone know how it compares to ibuprofen gel and when one might be better to use than the other.

When eldest was young I used a powder called 'filetti'. It came in a distinctive pink packaging but was quite difficult to find and quite expensive. It was recommended to me by a friend whose child had very bad eczema. I recommended it to several other parents whose children had skin complaints and everyone said how fantastic it was. I switched to surcare due to diffculty finding filetti but have just done a search and apparently it is available from ocado. Have had no problems with surcare bleaching anything but I always use considerably less than the recommended amount of powder.

I realise that many people suffer from dyslexia but I still get irritated when people use the wrong form of a word like their/there etc and the one that always makes me smile is 'dancing in bear feet'. It just conjures up an image of people dancing with those big, furry animal slippers on!

My youngest dd has just been cast as Eponine in her school production so its Les Mis all the time in our house atm. Although she has been in major productions including west end I have never seen her more desperate for a role. She usually hates doing anything at school infront of her peers but its her last year so think she has finally decided to show them what she is capable of!

I tried to add the following to my post above but was not allowed so here it is: My information was not aimed at you Michelle but rather I felt compelled to provide the facts about paracetamol overdose as I knew someone who took a deliberate overdose believing they wished to end their life only to change their mind later when unfortunately despite the best medical efforts it was impossible to save them. This event happened over 20 years ago but the discussion brought all the memories back.

An overdose of paracetamol is extremely dangerous because it causes delayed damage to the liver(hepatotoxicity) which is only apparent 24+ hours after the overdose has been taken. By which time the damage is usually irreversible (and often fatal) - the antidote needs to be given within 8 to 12 hours i.e. before any symptoms appear. Taking paracetamol and ibuprofen together every 4-6 hours is considered to be more effective than alternating them every couple of hours. Ibuprofen has a recommended 4x400mg doses a day (unless on prescription when higher doses may be given for certain conditions) so for continual effect try to space them every 6 hours. Would also echo others views about the danger of continuing to dance through pain. Pain is the body's way of saying STOP and if you mask this signal and carry on the damage is likely to be greater and recovery time even longer.

And how lucky you are to have a waiting room! At various times before dd left home I had spent time waiting in a kitchen, various corridors and quite a lot of time sitting in the car. Summer was ok as could sit in car and work or go for a walk but cold, dark winter nights were something I am definately glad not to have to do anymore.

Don't know how accurate/up-to-date this info is but if you scroll about half way down the page it lists the chartacteristics of the different freed makers http://www.the-perfect-pointe.com/sfreed.html As long as you don't think dds feet are growing quickly i would go ahead and order a couple of pairs from the key maker. Although you will obviously have to buy something else to tide her over six weeks is not really that long and if i remember rightly you don't even have to buy the shoes when they come in if they are no longer right. Also if you order several pairs you don't have to buy them all at once they will keep them put by for you and you can just buy one pair at a time.

Would be good to know what the national slinding scale for contributions will be so we can work out if it is even worth applying (no point even auditioning if we can't afford it even WiTH a dada!). Has anyone been able to find anything?

Talking of falling over my epic one was Dec 2010. Youngest dd was performing in panto and I had half an hour before I needed to collect her so decided to spoil myself with a coffee and sit down. When it was time to leave I went to put my mug in the dishwasher - unfortunately it was dark and I didn't bother turning the light on. I forgot that we had brought the guinea-pigs indoors because of the cold and they were running round the kitchen (the only room with no exposed electrical wires for them to bite through) so there was a board across the doorway to stop them getting out but still allow the cat access. I went flying, mug shattered and cut through base of my little finger severing nerve, tendon and artery! Chaperone had to bring my dd home while I went off in an ambulance for surgery. I still have very little feeling in my finger 2 years later and never walk round in the dark anymore!