Can someone explain the ballet process to me?

not such a bad thing we rarely have shows. saves me a lot of money (that the dancing daughters spend on other things of course)

I was lucky my daughters costume for show last year was only £11. She's starting tap in September so ready to be paying double for everything ..

DD(10) has just done her grade 2 at one of the less-pushy dance schools where we live. On the basis that 5/6 of her cohort came out with distinctions I'm not too upset that the dance teacher popped on 4 or 5 extra ballet classes on a Sunday plus a dummy run (at £5/session).
We do RAD for ballet and this is what they say about exams:

Graded Examinations.

These can be taken from Primary onwards. Candidates go into the exam, in a group of 4 max, wearing a number 1 - 4 to identify the individual. All of the required barre and centre exercises in the syllabus are performed including 2 solos. Your child will receive an individual score, Pass, Merit or Distinction with a certificate and a medal. To achieve the standard required to take a graded examination ideally, from grade 2 upwards, they should take two classes a week or at least take a
second class during the term of the examination.

Class Awards

These are for any grades pre-primary to Grade 8. The children go into the room as a class ( up to 8 candidates ) and are numbered. The exercises from the syllabus, barre and centre. One dance is performed as a pair. They do not have to perform anything as a solo. The child will receive a certificate and a medal. These are ideal for the once-a-week child, late starter or a child who is not so confident. The exam is structured as a class with the teacher in the room which reassures the
student and gives a more familiar feel to the award. There is no mark given.

I wouldn't worry about other dance mums from other dance schools. I have to admit I love being nosy and like to hear about what other kids are doing but it shouldn't affect what your child is doing unless you have concerns about where they are. if the child and you are happy then that is all that matters, whether others think elsewhere is better or not. My daughters have lots of friends who dance, some at schools I personally wouldn't want to send them to but that is just my opinion. They obviously like where they go and we like where we go. Interestingly it is worth noting that although these dance schools all start doing grades at different times and are doing different boards the schools starting exams later don't seem any further behind the others. Some schools have a real focus on shows, others on exams, some on pure fun, some on festivals and competitions. It really depends what you are looking for.

My daughter has been doing ballet for a year and has only done one show and NO exams even though she's very good, she 5 and we adore the teacher but feel like there should be more progress

What grade/syllabus is that?

just have other dance mums from different schools saying...

They will say a lot. Often about how much better their dc/teacher/school is than yours.

Most of it can be safely disregarded - there's an awful lot of 'competitive' parenting in the dance world, the best thing to do is ignore it all, and just let your dc enjoy themselves. As long as they are making progress, they are happy and the teacher is pleased with how they are getting on, then there's nothing to worry about.

My dds loved dancing at a point in their childhoods.
I would say though i think dancing is like childminding. It seems a lot to pay but not a huge amount to charge.
Most people who run local dance schools do well to make a living. I certainly cant see it as a nice little earner. Things like shows and the like are run at cost. Costumes and the like are down to the sort of out come the school wants

Thankyou, he's a great teacher and says he wants them to get the passion and enjoy it more than sit exams. They practice for them, just have other dance mums from different schools saying she should be doing exams but only coming up on one year

It's nothing to worry about to not to have done an exam a year in. It varies very much between schools and exam boards- if they do IDTA exams, children can be doing rosette exams around the age of 4 and can do quite a lot of them before taking preparatory grades around 5/6, primary around 7. If they do ISTD or RAD, preprimary will usually be their first exam. In my daughters first school, there were three IDTA exam sessions a year and the children took an exam in one of the core subjects (exams in ballet, tap, modern, musical theatre, freestyle) most sessions but they are cheaper exams and didn't tend to require extra classes. But in all the exam costs were huge.

it's not at all unusual that a year into classes she hasn't done an exam. My daughters current school, children tend only to take one exam a year, they only examine them in ballet. Other styles are studied in additional lessons, but not examined. The exams are more expensive and require extra exam clas for nearly a term and need new ballet shoes/character shoes. But it's once a year.

Some schools only do a show every two years. Most do some form of presentation of work/watch week the year there isn't a show, but not all. For us, old school did a biannual big production and alternated it with a presentation of work. New school does one presentation of work a year around Christmas and a biannual summer show. There's so much variety in how schools chose to run these things xx

I think Dd was 7 when she sat her first exam and it was roughly yearly after that. It was about £60 to pay for the actual exam, extra classes, the pianist for the exam.

My daughter started ballet Feb last year and did her first exam this year - pre primary . They do a show every 2 years and exams are every 1-2 years depending on stage .

lots of dance schools wouldn't do any exams until 6 in my experience. My girls were 4.5 and 6 when they started dancing. Both took preprimary ballet in the first term of year 2 along with the rest of their classes who were all year 2 or year 3 (the classes tend to span about 18months in age in our dance school).

at 5 it really doesn't make much difference if they have been doing ballet for 3 years or 6 months.

How often they take them and how early they start exams will vary depending on teacher and exam board. some boards start with preprimary, some dance schools have primary as their first exam, some boards even have an exam before preprimary. What board do they do at her dance school?

I am not sure how many shows she could possibly have fitted in if she has only been doing it a year. our dance school only do shows every few years and most of the ones round us seem to do them every 2 years but there is one who do 3 shows a year (but then do all their rehearsals in addition to their normal classes).

Any ideas how often children should do exams? My daughter has been doing ballet for a year and has only done one show and NO exams even though she's very good, she 5 and we adore the teacher but feel like there should be more progress

No problem. As an aside it can be fun (if you are so inclined) to volunteer to be a chapeone at shows. You have to register with the council and undergo various checks/interview etc but you really get a feel for what goes on backstage and how much organisaiton it takes and how much the childrne enjoy being in a theatre in a pretty costume!!!!!

(Even if they spill Ribena in their bag on the way to the theatre over their white street dance shirt, pink ballet socks and tutu as one girl did!!)

MrsWobble, sorry if my post was a bit abrupt, it's not the basic content of your letter I had trouble with, just that it came across as a bit "My child is a future star, please rush her through the grades!"

Re shows, the schools do vary quite a bit. At my kids' dancing school they only do a show every two years, which I'm in two minds about. The shows are a lot of work for everyone involved, and expensive, so for a parent once every 2 years is fine. OTOH the kids love it and probably find 2 years a long time between shows.

Sorry Planet, I disagree. I'm not sure if I have said but I run children's performing arts classes (not ballet but have colleagues who teach ballet) and those are all prefectly reasonable questions.

I asked most of those questions off dd's ballet teacher, allbeit over the phone. it is not unrasonable to ask about extra costs for exams and whether they are compuslory also how shows work as schools do them so differently.

Of course exams can not be arranged for just one or two childre. (You have to have a minimum anout of time anyway for an examiner visit thought some schools do combine but if the OPs teacher objects to these questions then I would have serious concerns about the school.

I teach that age range of children drama and singing and the needs of a 2/3 year old are so toally different to the needs of a 5/6 year old.

The OP knows that Pre-Primary is the most appropraiet level, she is not dispting that, but when a child is clearly the very oldest in a group by quite a margin it is reasonable to question the suitability of that class.

With regards to the letter, I would leave out the biot about late starters, 5 is not a late starter in the scheme of things but it is reasonable to ask if they have to take every Grade. My own dd skipped and Primary and went straight to Grade 1. The reason being that she transferred from another dance school because of distance and we could not make the time of the primary class, it just took her longer to be ready for Grade 1 and she was on that class for 2 years instead of 1 year.

In the first sentence instead of saying how her dancing is likely to progress I would say instead "I wonder if I could ask a few questions about how things work at your school"

My boys started ballet at 6 & 10 years old. They started off in pre primary and did a pre-pre primary exam, then pre primary a few months later. They took the primary exam about a year later and were grade 5 when they gave up (DS1 to go to uni and DS3 because he'd had enough).

They didn't do all the exams along the way. DS1 skipped a couple because he couldn't cope with them, but still went up with the rest of the class. He wasn't the only one to skip.

Exams involved extra lessons for a term, plus a whole new outfit each (white ballet shoes ) which they refused to wear to class, and were allowed not to, being boys and therefore special (little girls being 10 a penny).

The annual show involved a term of Saturday rehearsals (at extra cost) plus a lump sum for costumes.

The set up at your DD's school sounds fairly normal TBH.

Sorry, but I think your letter does come across rather as though you think your daughter is better than all the others that have been going for a while. I think you should just have a casual chat with the teacher.

You say she's just started ballet, well I think your letter suggests you're taking it all a bit seriously! Suppose some kids are 3 and she is 5, well why not, if she's just started? And when will she move up? Does it matter at this point?

And as for planning for the coming years, yes it can get expensive and you might want to think ahead, but also she might get fed up after 6 months and want to stop.

At my kids' ballet school exams are compulsory to move up a grade, and a group will do the exam together. It's not worth the time and trouble of the teachers to arrange exams for just one or two children, even if they're slightly ahead of the rest. (If it's half the class that might be different.) Sometimes kids move straight into higher grades, or skip through quickly, but I'm talking about say 12 year olds who are just starting, not 5 year olds.