The school of ballet theatre uk

Agree, however for some young dancers, their time in vocational training turns out to be a disaster for one reason or another. Some are completely sidelined in favour of 'favourites' and made to feel mediocre or worthless. Others have their physical & mental health neglected by the school and leave having had a traumatic experience through no fault of their own. Some come away from it physically and/or emotionally broken. Thrown on the scrap heap by a system that finds it very easy to replace damaged goods with fresh stock.

Agree. Re this. Well said. And I think if they look hard enough they would see that qualification to paid employment in top company conversion, is low across the board for many ballet schools. My daughter couldn't of think of anything else other than to dance and gain a qualification in dance and so even though she was academic she chose to do a dance degree, knowing if the dance failed she could always go on to do a bachelor's in something else still linked to dance. To flip it it on its head, she went for ballet and fell in love with jazz and fosse jazz and Panto, her aim now is to get into a caberet company. If she does, does that mean she failed or the school failed because she didn't get into a prestigious ballet company? f she teaches at a school for dance or joins a cruise ship, does that mean the teaching or she failed? I'd say not, I'd say she played to her strengths, she got a great degree whilst dancing and she thrived with the opportunities layed out to her.... If she ends up stacking shelves in Tescos I'll come back on agree with you, but until then she's still following her dreams with or without ballet :)

@Dancelife2026 With no particular place in mind...

As with all these things, have a good long look at the graduate destinations of the students of the training establishments you are interested in. And by graduate destination, I don't mean the students who go into a 'performance company' grad year, as if that was an employment contract. It's not, it's part of the course. It's what happens after that counts.

Look at the people who graduated 5-7 years ago and see where they are now, paying particular attention to the ones who are not dancing as a career. Look at starters who posted on social media when they joined the school, yet then disappear into the ether, never to be heard of again. They are the ones you want to talk to. The successful ones will say that everything was fine and dandy. Well, it was fine for some of them. Not so for some others.

There are a few dance psychologists about. Maybe they could help.

Contact adult amateur ballet performance groups. They will usually have members who were trained professionally at some point, and for whom it all went pear-shaped.

They seem to have a very wide insta and FB presence and are constantly encouraging their students to repost and tag them in their achievements... 10 years is a long time to improve :)

You state questionable teaching methods in your post. Are you referring to 10 years ago or now? because my daughter is at this school and I am not aware of any questionable teachings or lack of pastoral care (for her at least). She's thriving there and going into year 3 without issue, so need you to clarify your question or reason for research of this particular school?

Anyone with any experience of ballet theatre UK and any other training school with which they believe their methods are questionable -I would be interested in hearing from you for academic research purposes. This is research that potentially could benefit all dancers entering vocational training.

They don't even allowed positive posts now. Can't be mentioned at all. It has changed, measures are in place from nye on 10 years ago but still nothing is allowed to be discussed. We have had a positive experience of this school so far as have a few more who have done the last 3 years.

Good news - School of Ballet Theatre UK BTUK website has been changed again.

They are no longer telling auditioning parents next year that their children will get a Degree or an HNC or an HND or RAD UCAS points or in fact any qualification at all !

Now you pay the fees and rent (£50,000 ) just so you can tell your friends your daughter went to vocational ballet school.

I've spoken to some of the parents and the notice you refer to was issued in August 2016, some 6 months after parents started voicing their concerns on the balletcoforum.
I feel that the volunteers at the forum are being bullied.

No posts allowed - positive or negative

Not true - here's what it says in a pinned post:

"To all forum members: In accordance with our legal obligations, threads and posts relating to the School of Ballet Theatre UK are hidden and, for the time being, any new postings relating to that school will be hidden. We will advise members as and when this situation changes. In the meantime, please do not post anything relating to this school. Thank you."

Unfortunately the forum hasn't made a statement to explain their position and they delete any posts, unless they are positive posts. So parents doing research won't know that the balletcoforum is protecting BTUK.

I know people who tried to speak up about this 'school' and the way it was run 2 years ago. Sadly they were shut down by the school AND the parents. They tried to warn the parents not to trust these people but apparently they are very convincing!! The fact that you aren't allowed to discuss it on a dance forum is all I would need to know.

Dodobookends yes I have no doubt there were people who would like to help the students but felt they couldn't. All the students know that staff broke the forums rules by impersonating a student to promote the school on line and it's right the school is barred etc but I would like mums to come together to help prevent anybody else's child suffering and I'm not sure how to do that.

Chocolate there was more than one reason why the threads were locked I believe, and the decision would not have been taken lightly.

Thank you AH I guess i feel the children have been let down, there is a moral obligation to protect the children and that should have outweighed the threats being made

Could I possibly please ask folks to consider that the ballet world is an extremely small one, and that certain young people could be identifiable by the remarks on here.

Sounds most unpleasant. I hadn't realised that about schools...thanks for that. Still wouldn't want mine to go there though..

It might be interesting to note that I contacted the education authorities with regards to a completely different London based school.

There are no legal etc requirements for any institution to be registered as a school or college as long as they do not offer full time education to children under 16.

I personally have very recently been threatened by the principal of an unaccredited private musical theatre college because I questioned certain things & gave my opinion. Now I was careful to only give personal views on my feelings on that type of institution & ask questions so could not be said to have been defamatory but it wasn't very pleasant.

Chocolate - no moderators are protecting them. But balletcoforum is a small privately run website without the money for lawyers & extensive legal advice.

Mumsnet which is a much larger organisation has had to have similar bans on discussion in the past in order to protect the website owners from being personally liable for court cases.

Thank you multimumma but unfortunately there are parents of children who still attend BTUK who feel isolated, there are some parents that feel the need to pretend to the rest of the country (and their social circle) that everything at BTUK is great. It is important to recognise most parents have invested years of paying for ballet training to make their children's dreams come true, plus the emotional and financial cost will have been huge to get their child in to a vocational ballet school. But this is not a vocational ballet school it is a private ballet company and I don't understand why some moderators are protecting them at the cost of the welfare of the students

I have had some dealings with this 'school', which isn't officially recognised as a school, as far as I know (ask the local authority!!). I know that the students are obliged to live in accommodation provided by the 'school' which is very expensive and that there is no pastoral care as such. In one case, the 17 year old housemates of one student had to drive her to And E in the middle of the night because there was no adult available to help. I also know that most of the teachers dont seem to have formal qualifications. Maybe as a result of this lack of training,a few students have been told to continue to dance with injuries. I have heard of bullying from staff members, not only of other staff members but also of the students. It is not somewhere I would wish my child to attend.

I am aware that they have threatened people with legal action but I cannot imagine a magistrate in civil or criminal court be sympathetic to these 3 business people, who have been proven to mislead students and parents about what they offer. The principle has no qualifications in teaching and yet charges £30 plus for a master class. What is he a master in I ask?

Hi - I've had personal conversations with a couple of ex BTUK parents. I have known some of these people for several years.

The ban on discussion is due to the threat of legal action. It's balletco forums very own she who must not be named.

Things to investigate for parents considering the school:

The contract & bursaries offered. What are the conditions if your child decided to withdraw from the school for any reason eg injury or deciding it's not for them. Do you have to give a full terms notice to leave (standard in the independent secto) or are you bound to paying fees fircthecremsinder of the course/pay back the value of any bursaries offered.

Qualifications offered at the end of the course Is it a level 6 degree, HND or is the only validated qualification a HNC (usually completed in one year not three)

Who is actually in charge of running the school. The experienced artistic director of the BTUK company or someone else entirely. What experience does he have with training young people & injury prevention etc

What safeguards are in place and who vets accommodation.

Is the school fully CDET accredited as a full time school or just for its part time associate classes.