Which character shoe heel?

[annaliesey]

Dd is RAD grade 4 and needs new character shoes. I went online and noticed there are two heel heights in her size (maybe it's always been like this but I've only just noticed).

 

I asked ballet teacher but got a bit of a wishy washy answer and it was up to me what heel my dd decided to wear.

 

Has anyone got any advice?

Thanks

[JulieW]

How old is she? Although having asked that, I'd say for that grade she should be wearing a Cuban heel (the higher ones)

[Picturesinthefirelight]

I think it's low heel grades 1-3 & Cuban grades 4+

[annaliesey]

She's 10 and in grade 4

[annaliesey]

Thank you both I've just been on RAD website, to uniform pages and it shows low heel for grades 1-2 and then shows Cuban in grade 4 area so I'm assuming higher heel for grade 4. Although I'm sure she did grade 3 in lower heel!!

[Gowiththeflo]

I think thats the idea.... Low heel=lower grades, cuban heel=higher grades, but my dd's feet were too small to get the cuban heel ( i think they start at a size 1 or 2) for her grade 5 recently. She panicked, that she would get marked down for having the 'wrong' shoes... But teacher assured us she wouldn't!

She did well, so i'm sure it didn't go against her!

Xx

[2dancersmum]

Elder DD wore low heel throughout all the grades and younger only switched to Cuban for grade 6. Our teacher said it did not matter and no examiner would ever mark them down for it.  She believed the heel choice depended on the ankle and the age of the child as she did not feel a higher heel suited a young or young looking child, especially a petite one

[lilacfairy]

Yes we were wearing Cuban heel from grade 3

[Pups_mum]

My DD has very small feet and couldn't get the Cuban heels until she was on grade 6, or it might have been 7. It was never commented upon by any examiner and doesn't appear to have had any adverse effect on her marks. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[Dance*is*life]

All my students wore the low heels for all the old grades - it was simply easier to handle the exercises without a higher heel getting in the way.  No examiner ever said anything.  The only time any examiner mentioned the shoes was when I first started teaching the Higher Grades and they wore leather character shoes. She told me that the hard shoes had not given them the flexibility they needed in the foot work.  With the new work it might depend on what dances the teacher chooses for each grade, but I can't see a low heel being a problem.

[Cara in NZ]

We have three heel heights? Low for Grade 1-2, mid for Gr 3-4, and Cuban are the highest, from Gr 5 – although they aren't made to change shoes if the old ones still fit. My gripe was that even for the same brand, the sizing was completely different for the mid heels than for the low heels, so I was trying to buy the wrong size for DD.