Vocational training starting 2023

[WhereToNow]

On 12/09/2022 at 22:34, Ballerina_girl said:

Wondering if anyone can help, on the Elmhurst picture requirements it has two categories for photo requirements one says all students and summer school and one says Year 9 onwards. If auditioning as a current year 8 to try for year 9 entry do you fall under the first category or year 9 onwards? Not sure if it’s classed as current year or year your auditioning for. Thanks 

Hi, it will be for the year she is auditioning.  My DD auditioned last year for yr10 and got a place.  If you have any questions about the audition process from last year, I’m happy to help 😊

[Babyballerinamum]

On 18/08/2022 at 08:48, cotes du rhone ! said:

In our experience 11 is too young for a hundred reasons I could write a book on 😢

We had two children at the same vocational school, one started at 11 and the other at 17. We now would have held onto our daughter til later. 

Would you mind maybe setting out some of those reasons?

[Lifeafterballet]

On 01/11/2022 at 12:41, Babyballerinamum said:

Would you mind maybe setting out some of those reasons?

When we were offered a place at the school the Assistant Artistic Director asked us how we thought our daughter would manage with the boarding element. I recall describing her as a “tough cookie”. She was then but sadly we were completely naive as to the world of ballet training and boarding and the journey she was about to begin. Whatever people will tell you it’s not normal to send your 11 year old away from home to train for a competitive career. Home sickness and tears are normal its the environment that isn’t. I remember the houseparent described it as a sleep over with rules. It’s not. It’s an intense boiling pot of fear and self doubt. In my mind I liken it to Shawshank. Everything personality and character wise was stripped away. She had to learn to conform and fit into the ballet student mould. A ballet bubble, with restricted access to family and the outside world. She only had her phone for one hour in the evening. She would try to find a dark, private corner to call us. They were harrowing conversations 😩 She wasn’t mature enough at 11 to cope with the environment and why should she be. High levels of anxiety and stress, self doubt and feelings of not being good enough. But she felt she had won an amazing prize, that she was lucky, that hundreds wanted her space so she was reluctant to give it up. We supported her, thinking it would get better, it didn’t. Just another set of problems as you move through the school years. The love of ballet gets lost along the way. Occasionally you discover it again at a summer school or with an outside teacher but within the school class it was sucked out of her again. 
I think that had she been older she may have been more equipped to deal with the ballet and the boarding. And so graduated less affected and with her love of ballet intact. 
Im sure a lot of parents out there share similar experiences and regrets to us. Little did we know at the time 😞 The beginning of our journey was ten years ago and I hope that parents now are more well informed and feel less scared of doing what their gut tells them is best for their child. 

[AllAboutTheJourney]

Without trying to take anything away from the experiences described above, it’s probably worth mentioning that now students at vocational schools do not have restricted access to phones or family communication. They are able to communicate as much as they want to through the day, around class time etc, but in some schools their phones are handed in at lights out. 
 

There are also options for weekly or part time boarding if you live close enough - which works well for some people. 

[Lifeafterballet]

1 hour ago, AllAboutTheJourney said:

Without trying to take anything away from the experiences described above, it’s probably worth mentioning that now students at vocational schools do not have restricted access to phones or family communication. They are able to communicate as much as they want to through the day, around class time etc, but in some schools their phones are handed in at lights out. 
 

There are also options for weekly or part time boarding if you live close enough - which works well for some people. 

I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not 🤔 

I used to dread talking to Dd. It was that initial “Hello” and your heart sank 😞 It was like having a dementor for a daughter. She could suck all the happiness out of you in an instant.  
But not anymore 😃

[AllAboutTheJourney]

That must have been very hard for both of you.
 

My post was just to point out that it’s not just an hour a day that they have their phones now, for anyone wondering about how that works currently. 

[sunrise81]

3 hours ago, AllAboutTheJourney said:

Without trying to take anything away from the experiences described above, it’s probably worth mentioning that now students at vocational schools do not have restricted access to phones or family communication. They are able to communicate as much as they want to through the day, around class time etc, but in some schools their phones are handed in at lights out. 
 

There are also options for weekly or part time boarding if you live close enough - which works well for some people. 

At Elmhurst they don't have their phones during school day now, which I think is better tbh (from a school teachers point of view). She has it in the morning to send a good morning message and then gets her phone after evening meal until lights out. Her experience so far has been great......her love of ballet grows every term 😀

[Lifeafterballet]

13 minutes ago, sunrise81 said:

At Elmhurst they don't have their phones during school day now, which I think is better tbh (from a school teachers point of view). She has it in the morning to send a good morning message and then gets her phone after evening meal until lights out. Her experience so far has been great......her love of ballet grows every term 😀

In my Dds year a few of the children had two phones. One they handed in and one to keep. Bet that still happens 🤣

[SissonneDoublee]

On 12/11/2022 at 09:27, AllAboutTheJourney said:

Without trying to take anything away from the experiences described above, it’s probably worth mentioning that now students at vocational schools do not have restricted access to phones or family communication. They are able to communicate as much as they want to through the day, around class time etc, but in some schools their phones are handed in at lights out. 
 

There are also options for weekly or part time boarding if you live close enough - which works well for some people. 

DD’s vocational school takes phones off students throughout the school day, so this isn’t the case everywhere. It’s hard, as if she has had a stressful day the day before, it isn’t until the next evening that I get any update, so can worry all day (generally unnecessarily!).

[AllAboutTheJourney]

19 hours ago, SissonneDoublee said:

DD’s vocational school takes phones off students throughout the school day, so this isn’t the case everywhere. It’s hard, as if she has had a stressful day the day before, it isn’t until the next evening that I get any update, so can worry all day (generally unnecessarily!).

Apologies - I should have caveated my post and said it was about the schools I am most familiar with. Good to know they are not all the same. 

 

 

[Dance*is*life]

On 12/11/2022 at 13:27, cotes du rhone ! said:

I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not 🤔 

I used to dread talking to Dd. It was that initial “Hello” and your heart sank 😞 It was like having a dementor for a daughter. She could suck all the happiness out of you in an instant.  
But not anymore 😃

So sad for you - I had a male student attend a vocational school in the UK at 16 and for him it wasn't just home-sickness, but also a strange country and a completely different environment.  His Mum set up a chat together with me and together we kept him going.  Those two years were invaluable for him training wise, but hard going.  I'm so glad your daughter is happy now!

Edited November 17, 2022 by Dance*is*life

[Adage21]

Has anybody attended any auditions yet for Y7 starting 23?

[Millicent]

I think Y7 Tring auditions have already happened and results are out.

[Somerdance]

Daughter had her first audition for Tring last Sunday and it was unfortunately a no. This is all very new to us, does anyone have any experience of a no from Tring but a yes from other schools? 
 

[MissEmily]

One of the current Year 7s at White Lodge received a straight no from Tring. There is an element of luck to these auditions and happening to have someone in the room whose eye you catch! 🤷🏻‍♀️

[NotadanceMa]

On 12/11/2022 at 09:27, AllAboutTheJourney said:

Without trying to take anything away from the experiences described above, it’s probably worth mentioning that now students at vocational schools do not have restricted access to phones or family communication. They are able to communicate as much as they want to through the day, around class time etc, but in some schools their phones are handed in at lights out. 
 

There are also options for weekly or part time boarding if you live close enough - which works well for some people. 

This is not our current experience of mobile phone access in a U.K. vocational school.

There is no option that children of any year can communicate freely with home during the day. It is allowed if there is a serious problem only, or illness that warrants going home.

Up until Y10 the children have access to their phones between 630pm and 9pm. I believe in Y7 it is earlier than this.

All boarders in lower school have to hand their phones in at lights out or they are sanctioned by loosing access or time with their phone the following day.

 

Full-time boarding vocational training is in our experience a most peculiar mix of emotionally charged adolescence children in various stages of puberty set up to outdo one another in a highly competitive environment with not enough support for their needs in the way they would be supported by a parent at home. The culture and teaching practice for the most part is all that I have come to expect within this strange closed system. Not healthy, not transparent, not particularly caring, sink or swim mentality. Training young children as though they are in a company. Weird.

 

My child joined at Y9 and it has been a baptism of fire, 18 months in and they most certainly don’t love it, neither do they hate it enough to leave….yet.

At Y7 my child would have come home, not that it was ever something I would have allowed aged 11.

 

If I had the money, the time and lived near London (or CAT ballet training, or any city that offered excellent classes) my child would not be boarding, I would find good quality training, maybe RAD, good quality SI’s, associates and follow that path until Upper School auditions. 

If it was an option to move near the school they would not be boarding now.

I use all the optional exeats and go up still most weekends because that’s what my child still needs because they are 14 and need their mum. 
Being a teenager is as I remember ot one of the hardest times in a child’s life, combine that with full-time vocational training away from home that is a massive emotional ask for any child.

 

 

[Ballerina_girl]

2 hours ago, Somerdance said:

Daughter had her first audition for Tring last Sunday and it was unfortunately a no. This is all very new to us, does anyone have any experience of a no from Tring but a yes from other schools? 
 

we also got a straight no from last Sundays audition. Was wondering the same thing. 

[Ballerina_girl]

2 hours ago, MissEmily said:

One of the current Year 7s at White Lodge received a straight no from Tring. There is an element of luck to these auditions and happening to have someone in the room whose eye you catch! 🤷🏻‍♀️

this is good to know, and encouraging to read as was definitely a downer to start of with a straight no

[NotadanceMa]

On 12/11/2022 at 12:48, cotes du rhone ! said:

In my Dds year a few of the children had two phones. One they handed in and one to keep. Bet that still happens 🤣

It does 😉 

[Somerdance]

2 hours ago, Ballerina_girl said:

this is good to know, and encouraging to read as was definitely a downer to start of with a straight no

Agreed. Not the best start to it all. All a learning curve…
Good luck for the rest of the auditions! 

[Ballerina_girl]

56 minutes ago, Somerdance said:

Agreed. Not the best start to it all. All a learning curve…
Good luck for the rest of the auditions! 

Thank you! Good luck to you also! Absolutely agree it’s all great experience 😀

[Jan McNulty]

7 hours ago, Somerdance said:

Daughter had her first audition for Tring last Sunday and it was unfortunately a no. This is all very new to us, does anyone have any experience of a no from Tring but a yes from other schools? 
 

Hello Somerdance and welcome to the Forum!

[glissade]

18 hours ago, NotadanceMa said:

Full-time boarding vocational training is in our experience a most peculiar mix of emotionally charged adolescence children in various stages of puberty set up to outdo one another in a highly competitive environment with not enough support for their needs in the way they would be supported by a parent at home. The culture and teaching practice for the most part is all that I have come to expect within this strange closed system. Not healthy, not transparent, not particularly caring, sink or swim mentality. Training young children as though they are in a company. Weird.

Brilliantly articulated 👌

[TJK]

hi everyone

 

does anyone have any tips as to the best way to film the class / excercises required by Elmhurst and other schools for 16+ training

? we have a list of things she needs to perform, but do you just film on your phone and edit, or is there a special / better software that people use? thanks so much.

[RachH]

1 hour ago, TJK said:

hi everyone

 

does anyone have any tips as to the best way to film the class / excercises required by Elmhurst and other schools for 16+ training

? we have a list of things she needs to perform, but do you just film on your phone and edit, or is there a special / better software that people use? thanks so much.

I’ve just filmed all the sections for audition videos separately on my phone then used iMovie to put them together, also on the phone. Pretty simple and works well! Good luck!

[Lifeafterballet]

2 hours ago, TJK said:

hi everyone

 

does anyone have any tips as to the best way to film the class / excercises required by Elmhurst and other schools for 16+ training

? we have a list of things she needs to perform, but do you just film on your phone and edit, or is there a special / better software that people use? thanks so much.

Both my dc used an iPhone mounted on a small tripod, balanced on a chair, to get the right height. They managed to do their filming for company auditions on their own this way. 

Very stressful 😅 but the results were very good 😊 

[TJK]

On another note,  does anyone have any tips on pointe shoes for auditions and how different brands are viewed? My dd is wanting to wear Gaynor Minden, but a couple of people have said that this might not be well received by schools, because of the extra support they offer. Sounds over cautious to me, but she doesn't want to put them off. Any thoughts? Thanks a lot! 

[Dancing unicorn]

I say go with what she feels comfortable dancing in! She’ll dance better! 💗

[Laura_ballet]

I’d say wear a shoe that you can dance best in.

[Jan McNulty]

20 hours ago, TJK said:

On another note,  does anyone have any tips on pointe shoes for auditions and how different brands are viewed? My dd is wanting to wear Gaynor Minden, but a couple of people have said that this might not be well received by schools, because of the extra support they offer. Sounds over cautious to me, but she doesn't want to put them off. Any thoughts? Thanks a lot! 

Hello TJK and a belated welcome to the Forum!

[Summer47]

Just wondering if there have been any successes for Yr10 finals at RBS yet? 

[Jan McNulty]

14 minutes ago, Nutcracker20 said:

Just wondering if there have been any successes for Yr10 finals at RBS yet? 

 

Hello Nutcracker20 and welcome to the Forum!

[Dancers Dad]

On 08/12/2022 at 09:08, TJK said:

On another note,  does anyone have any tips on pointe shoes for auditions and how different brands are viewed? My dd is wanting to wear Gaynor Minden, but a couple of people have said that this might not be well received by schools, because of the extra support they offer. Sounds over cautious to me, but she doesn't want to put them off. Any thoughts? Thanks a lot! 

 

My daughter's just changed to Gaynor Mindens after years in Russian Pointe - her feet had changed and GMs just supported her better and helped mitigate some severe toe pain. She's in Yr 2 at NBS and no-one has said anything after a term of wearing them - other schools may be take a different view, of course, although you'd imagine that in auditions this surely wouldn't be a dealbreaker?