The culture and etiquette of dance teaching in the UK

[invisiblecircus]

Can someone explain this to me please?

 

From personal experience and also from reading posts on this forum, it seems that there is an etiquette whereby a pupil at a local dance school can't attend lessons elsewhere without permission of the first teacher. I have also heard of cases where dance students have been told they can't take part in other extra curricular activities such as amateur dramatic productions without permission of their dance teacher,  even where there is no clash of timetable.

 

I once did two terms maternity cover in a high school teaching GCSE dance. At the end of term, there was a performance of some of the work created and one student told me that she was not allowed to perform unless her syllabus teacher was credited in the programme!

 

On a slightly different note, a few years ago I was considering training to teach syllabus classes and enter students for exams. After calling various awarding bodies I decided to go with IDTA and they recommended I go through one of the schools in the area I was based, giving me a list. I called every one and they all refused to work with me, even though I explained that I did not ultimately plan to teach in that area. A couple of the schools said things like "I have my own pupils I'm putting through the teaching exams" and it seemed as if it just wasn't the done thing to even ask, even though the IDTA were recommending I do this.

 

I understand that ultimately dance schools are businesses and are in competition with other dance schools, but why are they so possessive?

[straceydor]

not all are like this.

[BusyBee]

May I ask what your experience of dance is invisiblecircus? As I know that some teachers will only put students through teaching exams if they are of a certain standard of dance.

[RhodaKuc]

I do know of schools (IDTA) who happily provide teacher training to others from outside their own students etc. Sometimes though schools struggle to find enough studio time to fit any more in! Perhaps you were just unlucky!

 

RK

[invisiblecircus]

I'm sure not all teachers are like this, but it does seem very common rather than just one or two isolated cases.

 

There was a post last summer about a vocational student who attended a summer school at a different vocational school and was offered a place at that school. There were suggestions on this forum that this was a breach of etiquette by the second school, but surely if a student submits themself for consideration at a different school they are then free to attend that school if offered a place. Schools are providing a service and people are free to buy that service from  whoever they prefer, although I do understand the emotional involvement in teaching a promising student and the inevitable disappointment if they chose to train elsewhere.

 

I was thinking about this recently while watching the Prix de Lausanne. The younger competitors have all reached an incredible level with their current teachers, yet those teachers have obviously let them compete knowing that if they win a prize, they will go and train elsewhere.

 

Most application forms for vocational schools require a signature from the applicant's current teacher. Why is this?

[2dancersmum]

I would agree that not all schools are like this, however:

the etiquette of speaking to your local dance class teacher before taking classes elsewhere or doing other extra curricular activities is one that is definitely common and I would agree with - though not necessarily the asking permission part.  It is certainly polite to inform the teacher if it may impact on their lessons with you - even if the student/parent is not aware of the impact.  The teacher is typically always thinking ahead- towards the next exam, next show etc and if a student is going to miss quite a few classes over a short period of time it may well have an impact on that student or other students in the class.  Schools also have to have a list of all their registered pupils I believe and teachers tend to know each other and I don't think it is very respectful for a teacher to find out from another teacher that their students attend classes elsewhere.

 

re IDTA and teacher training classes , I would be inclined to write to the schools in question and ask to be considered for teacher training.  I would have thought that any school would have limits on how many students they can train at any time depending on their size and availability of classes for practical training and priority is bound to be given to their own students coming up through the school.  Also, the fact that you would not be planning to teach in that area could be taken 2 ways - good we are not training competition but also bad because we put all the effort into training someone who would not be then prepared to work for us if we wanted them to.  I think you can explain your situation and the fact that you have sought the advice of the IDTA in writing far more easily than in a phone call

Edited March 13, 2015 by 2dancersmum

[invisiblecircus]

May I ask what your experience of dance is invisiblecircus? As I know that some teachers will only put students through teaching exams if they are of a certain standard of dance.

 

I'm a former professional dancer, graduated from both a vocational ballet school and a contemporary based university dance degree course. At the time I was making enquiries to these schools (5 of them) I was still performing professionally on a freelance basis.

[taxi4ballet]

Most application forms for vocational schools require a signature from the applicant's current teacher. Why is this?

Perhaps it is to confirm that the teacher thinks they are good enough to apply?

[invisiblecircus]

I would agree that not all schools are like this, however:

the etiquette of speaking to your local dance class teacher before taking classes elsewhere or doing other extra curricular activities is one that is definitely common and I would agree with - though not necessarily the asking permission part.  It is certainly polite to inform the teacher if it may impact on their lessons with you - even if the student/parent is not aware of the impact.  The teacher is typically always thinking ahead- towards the next exam, next show etc and if a student is going to miss quite a few classes over a short period of time it may well have an impact on that student or other students in the class.  Schools also have to have a list of all their registered pupils I believe and teachers tend to know each other and I don't think it is very respectful for a teacher to find out from another teacher that their students attend classes elsewhere.

 

I agree that everyone should be mindful of timetable clashes, but I'm writing specifically about cases where there are no clashes other than perhaps one missed lesson on the night of a performance (e.g. pupil attends am dram rehearsal Monday nights, ballet and tap Thursday nights and misses one night of ballet and tap on the evening of the am dram performance.)

 

Regarding whether it's respectful to find out from another teacher that their student attends classes elsewhere, I'm not sure I agree. It probably depends on the circumstances ( would be different if it was ballet at one school and tap at another rather than ballet at both) but as long as a student fulfils her commitment to the original school, I don't see why it she can't do whatever she wants outside of that or why it should be a taboo subject if she wants to mention other classes.

 

 

re IDTA and teacher training classes , I would be inclined to write to the schools in question and ask to be considered for teacher training.  I would have thought that any school would have limits on how many students they can train at any time depending on their size and availability of classes for practical training and priority is bound to be given to their own students coming up through the school.  Also, the fact that you would not be planning to teach in that area could be taken 2 ways - good we are not training competition but also bad because we put all the effort into training someone who would not be then prepared to work for us if we wanted them to.  I think you can explain your situation and the fact that you have sought the advice of the IDTA in writing far more easily than in a phone call

 

Thank you for the advice :-) It happened a while ago now and I was just using it as an example to illustrate my question. I don't live in the UK anymore and have got married and had 2 babies since this happened but I'm still considering what to do workwise in the future and although I haven't ruled out going the exam teaching route (if I move back to the UK) I think I am coming to the conclusion that maybe it's not for me, partly because of these kind of politics!

 

I do understand that there may be times that schools can't accept more people for teacher training but I definitely felt I had commited a faux pas by asking! One of the schools I approached had some students who auditioned and participated in a youth dance company I choreographed for. In the course of conversation I felt that the teacher was afraid I was going to set up in competition to her school, so that's when I explained that that was not my intention. It was also suggested to me afterwards that "teacher B" wouldn't want to work with me because of her fierce rivalry with "teacher A" whose students I had taught.

 

Your suggestion of writing a letter rather than calling if I do decide to persue this route in the furture is a good one :-)

[Picturesinthefirelight]

In my area IDTA isn't very big but two of the biggest dance schools who both happen to be BBO have actually set up Teacher Training courses & students from various dance schools apply to them.

[taxi4ballet]

Teachers entering students for exams with RAD register the student as one of theirs, so I think it causes problems if they are also taught by another RAD teacher as well. It may be the same with other examining bodies too.

 

There might be a conflict of interest with 'festival' schools if they enter a pupil and someone else enters them for another dance style? Don't know anything about festivals - others posters might know if is the case.

[Pas de Quatre]

I am no longer a member of the RAD as I preferred to return to my roots as a Vaganova teacher.  However, some time ago I did have reason to call the RAD exam department about a student who had left me abruptly (another story) and was being entered for an exam by another school nearby - although she had only been there a matter of weeks.   The RAD told me that many pupils have multiple registrations and that they could be entered for exams by any RAD teacher not the one they were originally registered with.  

 

It used to be that pupil's exam results were "credited" to the particular teacher that entered the pupil, now I am not sure what is happening, but it is not surprising that a teacher doesn't want the credit for years of hard work training a pupil to be then given to another teacher!

[invisiblecircus]

Teachers entering students for exams with RAD register the student as one of theirs, so I think it causes problems if they are also taught by another RAD teacher as well. It may be the same with other examining bodies too.

 

There might be a conflict of interest with 'festival' schools if they enter a pupil and someone else enters them for another dance style? Don't know anything about festivals - others posters might know if is the case.

 

 

I am no longer a member of the RAD as I preferred to return to my roots as a Vaganova teacher.  However, some time ago I did have reason to call the RAD exam department about a student who had left me abruptly (another story) and was being entered for an exam by another school nearby - although she had only been there a matter of weeks.   The RAD told me that many pupils have multiple registrations and that they could be entered for exams by any RAD teacher not the one they were originally registered with.  

 

It used to be that pupil's exam results were "credited" to the particular teacher that entered the pupil, now I am not sure what is happening, but it is not surprising that a teacher doesn't want the credit for years of hard work training a pupil to be then given to another teacher!

 

I totally understand than in the situations described above, it is unfair to a teacher to coach a student for an exam under the premise of having their result credited to them if the student then enters the exam with a different school. That makes total sense. My question relates to situations where school A offers RAD ballet, school B offers ISTD ballet, tap and modern and a student who wishes to take ballet at school A and tap and modern at school B is told by school B that she can't do so. (This, in a situation where there is no conflict of interest regarding timetabling/ exam dates/ school shows etc.)

 

There have been several posts about similar situations on this forum alone, and I know of other cases too. The daughter of a former neighbour was taking ballet, tap and modern at a local dance school and was told she couldn't take part in a local amateur pantomime because it was being choreographed by the principal of a different school.

 

Am I wrong that while clearly not all teachers are like this, it is fairly common? (I hope I'm wrong!)

 

Regarding my enquiries about IDTA teacher training, perhaps that was not a good example to illustrate my question. It seems I was just unlucky with the schools I approached at that time.

Edited March 14, 2015 by invisiblecircus

[taxi4ballet]

Some schools have a policy that all students have to take ballet + whatever other dance style, so that might explain why an ISTD school (for instance) won't let someone just take tap or modern, even though the student is already doing RAD at another school which only offers ballet.

 

For older vocationally-minded students, it wouldn't be a problem learning different methods with different teachers (it's a good idea if anything) but it might be rather confusing for little ones.

 

When it comes to entering for exams under the same examining body, both schools might want to enter the student for the same exam in the same session (this happened to us once!) and then you have a bit of a parental dilemma

 

Edited to add:

 

We have been amazingly lucky in that we have had amazing advice and encouragement from a lovely dance teacher who has taught dd only a handful of times, and has been the most wonderful source of guidance, help and support - particularly over the last year.  Thank you (you know who you are!)

Edited March 14, 2015 by taxi4ballet

[Moomin]

I can understand why a ballet teacher would want to know/ be involved with the teaching of other ballet but I personally wouldn't dream of asking permission to do other hobbies in our own time. I wouldn't have thought a teacher would want to know what all of their 100s of pupils are doing every minute of the day either! we stay with our teacher because she is wonderful not because we aren't allowed to go elsewhere! to me this sort of thing reflects badly on the teacher and I would try and stay clear of a school with this attitude.

[annaliesey]

I would say that it's more typical/normal for teachers to be territorial over their students and over recent years I've heard a fair bit of guff!

 

"RAD stipulate you can only register with one teacher" ...

 

"Schools who offer modern, tap and jazz are not proper ballet schools"...

 

"You must be versatile and only go to schools that offer other dance apart from ballet"...

 

"Xyz school are rogues/break rules and don't care about safety of pupils"...

 

"People always see the grass seems greener so I don't like pupils to go anywhere else"

 

I've heard all of these over the years and don't trust any teacher 100%. I've become a lot more cynical about the guff that is spoken that I switch off to a lot of it now.

 

The best explanation(?) I was given recently for a girl that went directly into a grade higher than girls of similar age that had been doing ballet for 7 years was that the girl was taller!

 

There are teachers out there who want to attract and retain pupils at all odds. Sorry if this isn't a very nice view to have but I think it influences the attitudes to dancing with multiple teachers.

 

[Thecatsmother]

I think it is common courtesy to ensure that if you are teaching or coaching a student from another school that their main teacher is aware.

 

Going back a long time-I had a teacher who banned us from going to parties when we were v young and this was not due to clashes with ballet commitments. Doing PE at school was also frowned upon.

[hfbrew]

Contrast that with my wonderful evening tonight at one of the Ballet Schools I work for. Watched by 3 other teachers who all own other local schools, happy just to see students doing their very best..and yes, some students are "shared" by us. Technically I suppose we are rivals but it really doesnt feel like that as we all support one another and recommend each other as and when necessary! And we love going to each others shows!

 

I dont believe teachers should exercise a monopoly over students or hold them back. Part of good teaching is to recognise when a students could benefit from other classes/teachers.

 

I do think that students should have the courtesy however to keep their teachers informed if they are attending another school. It makes planning easier for one thing- us teachers have to think far ahead. I am already planning timetables for next year and it all depends on numbers, even just one child giving notice can make or break a class. And if I know about a students other commitments I can endeavour to be flexible with exam coaching etc.

 

Sadly there are unqualified teachers in my area and just tonight me and the other dance school owners who were at the show were saying how frustrating it is that we get pupils from these teachers already badly trained. Which is why we much prefer our own students to go to each others schools if necessary knowing that they will still be in safe hands!

 

As for teacher training, well it depends on circumstances. Ive trained a good few but it is not easy to timetable as parents do not necesarily want to pay for classes where their children are being used as "guineapigs" as it were. The RAD for example rightly expect a trainee teacher to do many hours of teaching practise both unsupervised and supervised which is not easy for a school to provide even if a trainee could cover the considerable costs involved. So if a school is not going to benefit from a teacher who has used their facilities for training then its probably not surprising that they would think twice about offering this service.