Cost of ballet classes?

[munchkin16]

I don't know whether people would be willing to answer my question but how much is too expensive for a class? I dance at a smallish school and take two classes plus pointe each week. Every term our teacher has raised the price of each class by £1, not a lot but when added together... this means grade 6 next term will now cost £73. The second class (also an hour) is reduced to £49 and half an hour of pointe is £44. I have no idea how this compares I just feel she could continue to raise the prices without saying anything and get away with it!

[ZooZoo]

Is that £73 per lesson or for the term?!  If for the term, that seems ok, presuming that there are 10 weeks in a term that's £7.30 per lesson which I think sounds average to cheap (I am in South East).  £4.90 per lesson would be very cheap IMO.

[Moomin]

Depends very much on whereabouts you are and what facilities are provided? If its £7.30 per lesson that would be expensive around here, £5-6 would be more usual. Second lessons more like £4 but that tends to vary more, some give 1/2 price whilst others there's no reduction. Ultimately I suppose it depends whether you feel it is worth it? I would happily pay an extra £1 a lesson but if prices kept rising I would probably ask the reason!

[Circe]

I think we pay about £80 per term for weekly hour long classes, more for longer, higher grade vocational. No reduction for further classes and many kids do up to about 11 a week.

[Mad house]

We pay 5.00 per ballet class

4.50 per pointe class this is not an hour though.

[pas de chat]

We pay £4.50 for a 45 min class.

[All4dancers]

£4.50 for 45 minute class here too.

[hfbrew]

Where I am based the cheapest hall hire is £20 per hour so that is a factor as is cost of pianists in addition to teachers and assistants.And there are also insurances to factor in too!And there is also a limit on class size.

 

So depending on what you are getting for your money then the prices quoted above are very good value.

[tomuchtallent]

Where i live you have to pay by the month for 2 lessons a week.It works out to 100 pounds a month and thats the cheapest here.

[BankruptMum]

We pay £60 for first class £58 for second class (hour classes) per term, Pointe £30 (half hour class).  Price increases tend to be around £1 a term per class but these are annual increases not termly and not every year! 

The other school she attends charges slightly more but longer pointe classes are inclusive so its difficult to split the costs out per class.

 

 

[2dancersmum]

Varies by grade here, from £45 a 10 week term to £55 for 45 mins plus second class at 2/3 of first class.  Vocational grades charged in the same way starting at £53 for 45 min.  No separate pointe class. 

[w445403]

It's £80 a month for two 45 min classes where we go, most classes have piano accompaniment.

[LooLaBelle]

I pay £350  a term ( 11 weeks) for 2 hour long grade 5 lessons & 1 hour & a half  inter foundation lesson  per week,

so by my very basic calculation that's nearly £32 a week for 3 lessons. But I am based in London..

[Anna C]

Welcome to the forum, LooLaBelle - we also have a Loulabelle here! :-)

[alison]

My adult ballet classes in S. London work out at about £10 per 1 1/2 hours, but that does include payment for a pianist too.

[Lisa O`Brien]

Welcome to the Forum,LooLaBelle

[Snape]

We are about £7 for every 45 mins, no pianist. RAD

[LinMM]

Here in Brighton both the BBO classes and the Russian class I attend are £10 per one and a half hour class.

With the BBO for example we usually pay up front for half a term at a time so next half term because it works out as six weeks the cost will be £60 (so that's £120 for the whole term)

If you take a second class there is no reduction so as I take two classes that works out at £120 per half term and £240 per term.

 

This is for the Adult School I don't know if there are different charges for the children's classes.

 

The Russian teacher charges £10 per class or if you pay upfront......again half a term at a time then it goes down to £9 per class.

 

My cheapest class is on Saturdays with the Dance Collective which incredibly is only £6!!! And it's the nicest studio of the week!!

 

Ive just come back from London where I did two classes : the Chelsea Ballet master class which was £9 a class at the Place and I paid £13 for a class at London Russian Ballet but they do offers for people who attend more regularly or on a daily basis.

[miss.pointe]

Have you asked him/her why there are increases? Perhaps it's an increase in costs that won't continue - if it does continue every term it could soon seem a bit steep but it seems about right from my perspective (London). I always appreciate it when the teacher explains the reason for the increase - venue hire, new equipment, licenses, etc, as otherwise students are often left feeling the teacher is just trying to make more money for the same work/expense.

[munchkin16]

Thank you all for your replies, I guess the cost isn't really that bad, its just feels alot in one go! The prices are per 10 week term and that does include a pianist which makes me lucky and he is also very friendly and patient when the studio is cold! We dance in a first floor room which just has wood floors but we do get portable barres and 3 movable mirrors. I haven't asked why there has been an increase, I think I will leave it unless it rises again just wondering how you ever get anything done in a 45 minute class, especially at a vocational grade?

[LinMM]

I was wondering about that too. We're usually on the barre for at least 45 mins in most classes!

[drdance]

just wondering how you ever get anything done in a 45 minute class, especially at a vocational grade?

 

Barre is only worth 10% of the mark in RAD exams, and not even examined in the advanced RAD grades. I appreciate that it is where the technique is perfected but I know from my own teaching experience it is all too easy to get 'stuck' at the barre... and I feel that it tends to happen when the teacher doesn't have a specific aim for the class, or doesn't stick to it (only in my experience). As a younger teacher I used to turn up and start the syllabus at the beginning in my naive/younger belief that class had to start with plies, tendus etc and work on whatever I noticed. Now this is not a terrible approach, but isn't really conducive to the best learning, or the pupils really getting brilliant learning from the lesson. I did find that in my 'start at the beginning' approach we'd always take forever on the barre and rarely get to the end of the syllabus, which is where the best bits are! The enchainements, the dancing, the grande allegro etc - and where many more of the marks are. 

 

Sorry to go off on a tangent there! This has been quite an interesting read, it's good to know what people consider good value in a class.

[LinMM]

Well in a class lasting for one and a half hours we still get 45 mins in the centre and are nicely warmed up by then!

 

It's then up to the teacher what the EMPHASIS in the centre will be! And that depends on all sorts of things. It's impossible usually to include everything that's in the syllabus in one class though.

[drdance]

LinMM agreed - in an 1 1/2 hour class that's quite different! But the point being that it is impossible to fit everything in, and a 45 minute class can be useful as long as the time is used effectively.

[munchkin16]

I agree it is easy to get stuck at the barre and we do spend too long on the earlier exercises but I think it is also important for making sure we are properly warm. 1 1/2 hours seems like a good length to fit a decent warm up and time to develop on centre work and I definitely notice I make more progress in a longer class over my hour on Mondays. I can imagine it would be easier to get injured doing big jumps without a thorough barre.

[2dancersmum]

In fairness, although the vocational classes at DDs school are only 45 mins long they are never in isolation but usually follow a 45 min grade class.  These are for teenagers.  Adult ballet classes are all 1 hr 15 mins or 1 hr 30 mins long.  And closer to a vocational exam, usually in a school holiday so that it can be during the day time, there will be a couple of 2-3 hour long vocational exam classes so that the whole syllabus can be covered in one go.