Looking for recommendation for Edinburgh Ballet school

[BalletmumEdinburgh]

We are moving to Edinburgh next summer. Our daughter is 8 and has been in ballet for 5 years, this year accepted at The Washington School of Ballet here in the U.S. Although young, she is very serious about dance, and wants to be on a path to a professional programme. Looking online, I saw a handful of Edinburgh schools that claim to have a RAD programme, but would very much appreciate recommendations from other dancers' parents!

[Anna C]

Can't help with your query BalletmumEdinburgh, but welcome to the forum. :-)

[BadBallerina]

I believe there are more opportunities in glasgow (scottish ballet and royal conservatoire) but Ballet West run associates in both glasgow and Edinburgh. DanceBase (edinburgh) also do good workshops with professionally companies, sometimes scottish ballet or birmingham royal ballet. Sorry this isn't much use in terms of normal weekly schools but associates courses are good too

[Legseleven]

You could also consider the Royal Ballet School junior associates classes in Newcastle-upon-Tyne if you are able to take your daughter there on Saturdays on a weekly/fortnightly basis. 

[Kate_N]

8 is still very young - serious study really only starts between 8 & 10. So there's plenty of time still! She'd probably start in the lower grades 1 or 2. The differences between US and UK training are that here, training for children tends to follow various external curricula, such as RAD (not to be confused with the Royal Ballet), or Cechetti, or ISTD (Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance), or the BBO (British Ballet Organisation).  But the main thing is getting regular slow but steady training.

 

I'm a great advocate of our publicly funded regional Dance Agencies (not commercial agents for dance employment!). The Edinburgh one is DanceBase, so you might contact them for recommendations.

[HumflyDumfly]

I have heard good reports of Central Scotland Ballet School, for regular classes as well as the associate programmes mentioned above.  When your daughter is a little older, she could audition for the Dance School of Scotland, which has excellent training, and is fully funded.  I believe there are also outreach classes and holiday courses at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

[swanprincess]

Ballet West do associate classes at Dance Base in Edinburgh

[Flit and float]

Edinburgh Dance Academy is a good RAD (& jazz, tap etc) school. Morningside Dance Academy is another one & Elite Studio Centre is great, my friend went there for extra training before she went pro.

[Flit and float]

Oh and Dance For All is a college but I think they might have younger classes too. Check the RAD Scotland page for news about RAD Schools.

 

Scottish Ballet have junior, mid & senior associates from P6 (so around age 9/10) and you can audition for Dance School of Scotland for S1 entry (& it's fully funded!) Might be a bit premature but sonething to consider. Scottish Ballet associates are weekly in Glasgow (not too difficult to get to from Edinburgh) and they used to have monthly data for children travelling from outside Glasgow, not sure if they still do.