RAD Grades and Age

[Actsingdance]

My daughter turns 12 in the autumn and is in Grade 3. She took Grade 2 2 years ago when the old syllabus was being taught. After about 6 months a group who had been dancing longer took their exam and the crest began the new syllabus. However this year is their bi annual show hence the exam has not actually been taken.

 

The teacher prefers to take them slowly through the grades and make sure they develop the strength & technique needed.

 

She won't actually take the exam now as she starts vocational school in September.

[Shimmer]

It really depends on the school. I did Grade six then Intermediate before going into full time training. I then did Grade 7 and Advanced 1 last year, and Grade 8 and Advanced 2 this year at the ripe old age of 22! I really enjoyed doing the higher grades as a more mature student although I sometimes felt a bit self-concsious in a class full of skinny 13 year olds!

[taxi4ballet]

It looks to me as if there is more of a disparity with the ages/grades at the moment, when I look at dd and friends of hers at different dance schools. Although they are the same age, dancing at much the same level, and are in the same associate classes as one another, they are all in different grades.

 

Maybe it's because of the RAD changing the syllabus and age entry requirements for so many grades/vocationals recently.

 

Lots of people have been nearly ready to take their exam when the new syllabus has come out, so have then had to learn the new one and have spent a longer time in that grade... Whereas other teachers have possibly squeezed  their exam session in earlier than they might normally have done, because they wanted their students to do it before the deadline for the old exam passed.

 

It's probably going to carry on for a bit longer too, as the new advanced syllabus is being released,soon, and they will probably then do a new syllabus for grades 6-8 as well!

[2dancersmum]

I agree with taxi that the introduction of the new syllabus has had an effect.  Exams at DDs school tend to be every few months normally but not all of the grade 3 class were ready to take their grade 3 exam by the time it stopped being examined.  Some took the exam and and have now just taken grade 4.  They will take grade 5 also before that syllabus stops being examined.  Children the same age who did not take old syllabus grade 3 are taking their grade 3 on the new syllabus next week but they will not actually start on grade 4 until the launch of the new syllabus in January.  In DDs school children take exams when they are individually ready rather than class by class so each grade has quite a mixture of ages in it.

[youngatheart]

Yes 2dancersmum, this system is what I was advocating in my post. The problem is more in smaller schools when there is only one exam session a year and students have to be kept in their cohorts even if they are ready to take the exam earlier, or conversely, not ready by the exam date and get moved up anyway, which results in students being in classes that are much too advanced for them. (Unfortunately I have experience of the latter type of school - only the top few students were ever "invited" to take the exam but the whole class had to move up to the next grade whether technically ready for harder work or not. Very stressful for the students who maybe would have liked to do the exam "later" but weren't allowed to, and then saw themselves getting further and further behind each time they got moved up. Eventually most of them left. They were only there to make money for the teacher anyway as only the exam candidates got proper corrections.)

 

In my earlier post I was taking the description of this particular 12-year-old at face value, i.e. of a talented and ambitious student who wasn't getting enough hours of ballet a week to enable her to progress at the pace she needed to).

Edited July 5, 2013 by youngatheart

[taxi4ballet]

Sometimes I think it is possible to progress more quickly through the grades, but it really depends on how many classes a week you are taking in that grade, and if the teacher allows you to do the class above as well.

 

Somebody doing three or four classes a week is going to be ready sooner than somebody else who has only one, and it is often down to the dance school's timetable... (and the inclination/availability of the poor parent at the wheel)!!