New national youth dance company

[Regattah]

How exciting! Let's just hope it's not a sweetener before they announce a cut in MDS/DADA ....

 

http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a00204075/vision-for-cultural-education-will-inspire-all-children-and-enrich-lives

[amum/Cathy]

I had a good read of the report this afternoon. It is here http://www.dcms.gov.uk/images/publications/Cultural_Education_report.pdf

 

Page 52 and 53 recommend that DADAs continue but there is a somewhat worrying comment about them not being means tested, implying I think, that they should be for those young people who could not otherwise afford to go. Well I can understand that but a lot of families don't prioritise dance training and I think this gives the students a bit of independence from their families when it comes to chosing to go into dance. Knowing they can get some funds without begging their family to pay for everything is vital. These are the students looking for 16+ training whose familes may already have decided they couldn't afford to pay vocational school fees up to 16, even with an MDS award.

 

Still it sounds like good news for DADAs

[Regattah]

Well done for posting the link to the report - I couldn't find it.

 

It will be interesting to see how they define 'could not otherwise afford it'. I know so many people on good salaries who still aren't able to send their children to vocational school. What also worries me is the reference to other sources of funding as if that lessens the Government's responsibilities. After having done much research whilst my DD was at Tring without funding, it was obvious that a) there's not much alternative funding available and what there is usually comes with certain criteria such as for instance the child must be from a single parent family, from a service family, low income etc. If I remember correctly, the Lloyd Webber bursary mentioned is given to one person a year across all the performing disciplines. My memory isn't brilliant, do correct me if I'm wrong!