Dance sixth form options

@Comefromaway the top up fees at £4200 per year so not insignificant I certainly don't pay that in acting, singing, dancing and musical theatre fees a year and I would include two weeks residential at BYMT in my total.
Though I am outside London so probably private lessons are cheaper.

Attending Move It is a really great idea. It might also be worth looking at why the parents are unsupportive? Fees can be offset though bursaries or DaDAs or student loans. Academic education can still be provided- some will offer A levels, or you can get a degree, etc. Even if she doesn’t want pure ballet, don’t ignore places with ballet in their name. Northern Ballet School has a jazz stream. Many of the schools are geared up for having 16-year-olds living away for the first time, so she shouldn’t narrow her options to the London area.

True, but I am assuming that they are currently funding dance school/summer school/LCB fees which are not insignificant.

I pay around £20 per half hour for 1:1 sining lessons, £20 per hour for 1:1 dance lessons at a local level (normal dance school teacher) £20-40 for a West End style masterclass and £40-£50 per hour private dance lesson at higher level and that's in the cheaper North. The average non residential summer school is £150-250 and residential can be £400-500. (LCB is highly subsidised though I gather)

Incidentally OP, if she has done LCB it is pretty competitive so she must be of a high standard.

@Comefromaway I agree they do cover 1-2-1 and extra dance lessons, but the parents disinclination to contribute to this education seems to be important. So it is necessary to know that whilst the BTec is funded in there are additional fees.

Dance teaching is very badly paid!

I don't know a huge amount about Emil Dale but to be fair to them, the top up fees for the btec covers what someone at a normal school or college would be paying in 1:1 singing lessons and outside dance classes/workshops anyway though I reckon I could source those things cheaper than what they are charging for it.

Everyone I know at either the Brit school in London or BOA in Birmingham has continued to attend and pay for their normal dance school classes outside of school. Places like Urdang, Bird, Laines, etc of course you wouldn't need to as the hours there are so intense and the level so high.

Emil Dale has been mentioned this is a musical theatre college which has funding, but charges top up fees. If musical theatre is something she would consider Act1 in Milton Keynes and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Briton also have funding. If she is interested in MT many of the private colleges have Stage Scholarships available for sixth form.
She could attend Move It at excell in March where large numbers of the colleges perform and exhibit. Though not the ballet colleges.
With a DD a year older who is about to start her MT auditions I would say it is possible for her to do must of the research herself on the internet. My DD decided this path at the end of year 9, she researched and by the Christmas of year 10 she had a listed of places she was interested in and over the last year she has narrowed down to those she wants to audition for.

She needs to be at least at intermediate level for ballet to be able to cope with the auditions, although if she’s only 14 she has another year to go yet. I would recommend going to as many summer schools/short courses as she can, to get a feel for the schools and the teaching. She does need supportive parents though, it’s a really tough route to follow with lots of knock backs and rejections on the way. The kids who pursue these careers need a ton of resilience.

The summer school matters

DaDA are means tested so as comefromaway says under £20ish you get accommodation over £90ish you get nothing

There are colleges that combine a BTEC with vocational dancing like stageworks near Cambridge I think there are some in london but tbh it's 5 years ago for me/DD but if remember right they are fee paying alongside the free course - you can do the free bit but you'll get no-where without the fee bit

Tbh without intense parental support you will struggle to get anywhere - once the fees are paid the uniform/extras stretch into the thousands each year alongside transport/lunches etc

Notapushymum is a great place to start

It was a very hard road for DD with full/over-invested parental/grandparental support - without that the first set of forms and audition pictures, followed by the costs of applying and getting to the auditions would have broken her and ended it - we did audition year twice!

If she hasn’t already I’d advise her to try and start studying for the Vocational Grades alongside (Inter F, Intermediate, Adv 1 etc) to help with familiarity of steps at audition. Dd found that most places she auditioned for were pitched at around Intermediate level.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have knowledgable, supportive parents and teachers. I’ve known (& helped in real life) lots of such children by helping them to find the information/ give them a starting point who have gone on to train. Time will tell with regards a career.

You're very invested and rude, considering it's for your dd friend.

If she really wants to do it wild horses won't stop her and she'd look at all types of school.
Those who succeed take every opportunity they're given, and don't give up.
She doesn't sound determined enough tbh, we all want to do these things, fact is very few do.

Which summer course does she go to, and what level is her ballet (which grade)? The answers to these questions might help to narrow down which vocational schools are worth applying for.

The parents aren’t unsupportive if she goes on a ballet summer course in London every year.

It's even worse stuck. Most post 16 dance colleges are DaDa not MDS funded and there is no maintenance element to a DaDa so accommodation fees have to be entirely parent funded unless they earn under £20k per annum .

However if the OP could help persuade them to treat it a bit like uni just 2 years earlier where they will be expected to contribute to a student's maintenance perhaps it is do-able at somewhere within travel distance.

Or the Urdang option would be no different to an FE college in terms of funding.

Ps my dd was funded for music which is the same scheme and it's means tested so if parents won't engage there's no point in pursuing this, I suspect they are being realistic, it's really really tough

Also, not to dampen things too much, unless she has had serious top-notch ballet training for some years, the ballet schools are likely to be out of reach - not impossible, but unlikely.

There's a performing arts course available at various colleges, a friend took it 5 years ago, did a 3 year musical theatre degree and is now in the chorus in the west end. There's only one place in our county that offers it so she will need to be flexible about where she goes. Most youngsters just continue extra curricular and do a levels, it future proofs their options.

Oh, I didn’t realise Millennium had lost its funding status. Cross that one off.

If parental income does mean that a DaDa wouldn't be enough then one course to definately look into would be Urdang's AVT course. It's a Level 3 course leading to a Cambridge Technical Diploma (same standing as a Btec but delivered by a specialist dance college) & is designed to prepare students for entry to professional degree or diploma courses aged 18. It is fully funded fee wise.