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RAD Advanced Foundation/Advanced 1


taxi4ballet

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I have heard this mentioned about other schools, but my dd's ballet teacher insists on them doing Advanced Foundatio first.

 

I can see the sense in this as there is such a big leap between Intermediate and Advanced 1 that it must be very daunting to go straight onto that. At dd's school they also take Advanced 1 at the same time as Adv F. so they are getting used to working at a more difficult level too, even if it takes some time for them to feel at ease with the higher syllabus. However, by the time they take their Adv F they feel it is well within their grasp because they've become used to the Adv 1.

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At my DD's school they go straight to Adv 1 but they do learn some of the adv foundation exercises as the teacher feels that some of the exercises are best learned that way. I think the lack of adv foundation is probably more of a timetabling/numbers issue than anything else though. My DD has recently started at a new school for her advanced classes and there too they skip the advanced foundation. It seems to be a smooth transition from intermediate to advanced 1.

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Apart from a few people on here I don't know anyone who has done Advanced Foundation - it takes quite a long time to learn Advanced 1 so personally I think the time's better spent doing that, but I suppose if you took Intermediate at a very young age it would make sense to put Adv Found in between

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Thanks everyone, as dd is hopefully taking her Inter exam soon, and if we move schools, your advice will help us in our decision.

 

It does look like quite a leap up (having looked at the pointework on the dvd I got on ebay a few months ago), but as JulieW says, it's probably better to spend the time in Advanced 1.

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I don't think they do Adv Foundation at Hammond. I know that my daughter was kept down in Intermediate rather than doing her exam last term as her teacher felt that seeing as she was still 12 it would be silly to have her hanging around in Advanced 1 til she was 14. She'd only done two terms in Intermediate, so I was really pleased with the decision. Much more sensible than rushing through for absolutely no purpose! On the same lines, although they do Inter Foundation at Hammond, they obviously don't feel that all the children should have to do it as DD didn't.

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taxi4ballet - it is worth remembering that the Intermediate being examined now is the new syllabus. The new Advanced Foundation and Advanced 1 exams will be released next year and examined from 2014, when the old ones will not be valid anymore. If the RAD do it the same way they did for IF and Intermediate, there will be no overlap.

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I do teach some of the current Adv foundation exercises and then move students onto the adv 1 exercises once they're strong enough - I give them the option if they want to take the exam (but I do this at every stage because I do a lot of free work as well as exam settings) because as other people said there is a huge jump between inter and adv 1 but some of the exercises are in both syllabi - this all stems from when the majors were pre-elementary, elementary, intermediate and advanced. Intermediate was then split into inter part one and part two (with the odd few exercises added in, to make it a 'traditional' ballet class - ie still with plies, tendus etc). Some people took the exams separately but others did the full lot in one exam. Part one was later re-named pre-intermediate and part 2 was named intermediate. When they changed the names and the majors became 'vocational graded examinations' pre-ele became inter foundation, ele became inter, pre-inter (formerly inter part 1) became advanced foundation, inter (formerly inter part 2) became adv 1 and advanced became advanced 2.

 

It was all originally the RAD's 5 year programme but unless you were in full time training it soon became apparent that it took people longer than a year to get through each exam.

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Not completly academically sound, but I have had a quick look back over our results from the last few years, the girls who did the Advanced Foundation exam in 1 year followed by Advanced One 6 months - 1 year after seem to have significantly better results :o , something I had noticed until I read this question. I think I may have all the children do the it this way in future ;) , ofcourse there is the possibility that with the new syllabus it may no longer be optional.

 

T.

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My school tends to move people straight from Intermediate into "Advanced" but this consists of a fairly 'open' class (mainly off-syllabus) that gets more specific when students are working towards a particular exam. Although I guess the option of doing Adv Foundation is there most people seem to go straight on to Adv 1.

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