Day in the life of a year 7 at WL, Tring and Elmhurst

[Jane156]

I'm interested in what daily life is like for Year 7s at these schools. How the days are split for dance and academics; how they spend their down time; how many stay at weekends etc. Thanks

[Balletdoodah]

yWhite Lodge (Years 7 to 11)
Artistic curriculum
The Royal Ballet School has its own System of Training which is fully documented and which is applied by the students throughout their time at the School. Please see separate policy document.
Artistic classes take place each day (approximately 2 blocks of 2 hours each) including Saturday mornings (approximately 2 hours). In general all Saturday classes end at lunchtime but there may be exceptions during performance periods. Under normal circumstances Year 7 students would not expect to have Saturday classes for the first half of the Autumn Term.
Academic curriculum
The school day is divided into 9 x 40 minute lessons, Monday to Friday from 8.30am until 4.00pm. Each Year group will take academic lessons for 6 of those lessons per day (a total of 30 lessons per week).

 

Year 7 & 8
Art, Drama, English*, French, Geography, History, Mathematics, Music, Science, Studies in Religion

Year 9

Art, Drama (LAMDA), English*, French (FCE), Geography, History, Mathematics, Music, Science

[MissEmily]

Elmhurst Year 7

They have a two hour ballet lesson every day Monday to Friday. 

They also have a 90 minute lesson in another discipline such as contemporary (Rambert grades), choreography, conditoning, pointework, character... most days

They study: Maths, English, Italian, Science, History, Geography, Music (private lessons are also included in their MDS funding), Drama, Art 

Lessons finish at 6pm most days and earlier one day a week. The last lesson of the day is the 90 minute dance lesson, but never ballet, which is earlier in the day.

They then have dinner and have between 18:30 and 19:45 to have showers, do any homework sort their rooms out etc. They also have their phones to speak to family during that time.

"Family time" is at 19:45-20:15. This is time spent together in the common room catching up on the day, without phones

20:15-20:29 (!) is their main window for phoning home, then they have to hand their phones in and get ready for bed before lights out at 9. 

 

Any more questions, feel free to ask. I have an ex-student in the current Year 7.

[MissEmily]

Sorry, I forgot to answer the weekend situation.

 

Normally, from January, they have Saturday morning RAD ballet lessons making going home for the weekend impractical for most. This year, for uninteresting reasons, these will start after Easter. 

 

They have "leave out" weekends or a holiday every three weeks.

 

It seems very roughly to be a 50/50 split of those who stay for weekends and those who go home at the moment. Weekend activities range from the very simple (going to Aldi and the park, which they love) to exciting trips to water parks/ the cinema/ bonfire night displays etc., and in-house activities like pizza-making, face mask-making and talent shows.

[Laura_ballet]

Do they still do “prep” at vocational school? If not, where do they do their home work?

[Babyballerina]

21 minutes ago, Thelittleswans said:

Do they still do “prep” at vocational school? If not, where do they do their home work?

My boy is in Elmhurst year 7 and they don't have homework.  They said that the day is so full that they don't have time to do homework in the evenings.  As for the weekends, he stays unless its leave out and the range of activities they have is wonderful.  He is thoroughly enjoying every moment.

Having also had a daughter go through White Lodge, i feel that they have too much time on their hands and not enough supervision on a weekend especially as they get older.  They go to Sheen with the houseparents in year 7 and 8 on a Saturday afternoon but Sunday seemed to be 'entertain yourself'.  I can assure you that this was not a good idea

Edited March 20, 2023 by Babyballerina

[The red shoes]

33 minutes ago, Babyballerina said:

My boy is in Elmhurst year 7 and they don't have homework.  They said that the day is so full that they don't have time to do homework in the evenings.  As for the weekends, he stays unless its leave out and the range of activities they have is wonderful.  He is thoroughly enjoying every moment.

Having also had a daughter go through White Lodge, i feel that they have too much time on their hands and not enough supervision on a weekend especially as they get older.  They go to Sheen with the houseparents in year 7 and 8 on a Saturday afternoon but Sunday seemed to be 'entertain yourself'.  I can assure you that this was not a good idea

There are regular trips on Sundays at WL. And not left to own devices. Yesterday they did ceramic paining and this Sunday it’s a trip to the sea life centre. They do treasure hunts, museum visits, trips to the cinema plus they have swimming on site at the weekends too. 

[Babyballerina]

1 minute ago, The red shoes said:

There are regular trips on Sundays at WL. And not left to own devices. Yesterday they did ceramic paining and this Sunday it’s a trip to the sea life centre. They do treasure hunts, museum visits, trips to the cinema plus they have swimming on site at the weekends too. 

Well this has changed since last year as that wasn't happening at all.  As i say i speak from experience not just hear say

[Janeparent]

3 hours ago, Babyballerina said:

My boy is in Elmhurst year 7 and they don't have homework.  They said that the day is so full that they don't have time to do homework in the evenings.  As for the weekends, he stays unless its leave out and the range of activities they have is wonderful.  He is thoroughly enjoying every moment.

Having also had a daughter go through White Lodge, i feel that they have too much time on their hands and not enough supervision on a weekend especially as they get older.  They go to Sheen with the houseparents in year 7 and 8 on a Saturday afternoon but Sunday seemed to be 'entertain yourself'.  I can assure you that this was not a good idea

This is interesting about not having homework - it must be a new policy at Elmhurst as my DC was there until a year ago and they had homework most nights.

[MissEmily]

My student reports having about six pieces of homework a week at Elmhurst…

[Babyballerina]

22 minutes ago, MissEmily said:

My student reports having about six pieces of homework a week at Elmhurst…

Really, my son says he doesn’t get any!!  I’ll check with him.  The house parents also said they don’t get any.  Thanks for the heads up I will definitely check 

[Farawaydancer]

My ds has been there for 8 years and didn’t have homework all through lower school. 

1 hour ago, Babyballerina said:

Really, my son says he doesn’t get any!!  I’ll check with him.  The house parents also said they don’t get any.  Thanks for the heads up I will definitely check 

 

[Lifeafterballet]

When Dd was in year 7 I used to drive an 8 hour round trip for Ds to do the associate class on a Saturday at Elmhurst. We used to joke that it was easier to get a prison visitors pass than to she her while I was there or heaven forbid take her out for a couple of hours. 
The ones who couldn’t go home at the weekends would all sneak into the main building, they weren’t allowed in there except to go for meals, just so they could see a parent of one of them. I don’t think they really cared whose parent it was, it was just to have some outside contact. I remember feeling very sad for them 😞. 11 is very young. 
Dd did prep, homework, for the last hour of the day, before supper at 6pm. This was some time ago. There was always a timetable rivalry between Academics and dance. Looks like dance won 🤣

[Janeparent]

12 hours ago, Farawaydancer said:

My ds has been there for 8 years and didn’t have homework all through lower school. 

 

My DC was a day student so I was a witness to them definitely doing homework! It was a source of stress for us because it was very difficult, by the time they’d got home after finishing school at 6, to fit in homework and a shower and get to bed early enough for a good night’s sleep.