Advice on a teen picking up ballet again?

[holidayfever2024]

Hi there my DD is 13 and wishes desperately she hadn't dropped ballet, so is asking to start again.
Does anyone have any experience of doing this - my worry is she will presumably be waaay behind much younger students .
Would this lead to frustration and disappointment?
We have been offered a grade 3 class as she has some prior experience does this sound about right ?
All input most welcome before we commit as she would have to drop another activity so don't want to jump in and then find it doesn't work out.

Well, she can only give it a go. She might not be frustrated and disappointed if she makes solid progress. Some dance schools have dedicated classes for teens. Is that an option? Otherwise, she might well be taking grade 3 alongside 10-year olds. How many classes a week would she do? If it’s just one, that isn’t likely to be enough to make decent progress.

I think it depends too, on what she wants to do with it. I believe that dancers who make a career out of ballet, start very young and are at the junior version of the Royal Ballet school at a fairly early age.

I think if she sees it as a stepping stone to musical theatre or similar and she enjoys it, great! If she’s planning on classical ballet, it may be more difficult.

My DD has done this. Her teacher has a class which has a lot of kids who’ve done similar, so it’s more mixed than the strictly graded classes, but it skips the “good toes, naughty toes” type thing. I’d enquire with a few teachers?

My 9yo is in grade 3 (and she is the youngest and smallest). The other girls are aged 10-15.

** there are 5 of them in this class.

Hopefully the dance school is offering this as a free trial class, and once they've seen her they will then have a chat and suggest which class might be most suitable - either the grade 3 or possibly 4, but it would depend on which examining body it is (the grade boundaries can be different) and also how often the school does exams. There would be no point in her joining in a class if everyone else is exam-ready in that grade.

Depending on how keen your dd is, then at her age it is perfectly possible to do more than one class a week so they might let her do the class above as well for instance. My dd doubled-up on grades for several years.

Thanks all for the encouraging replies - I am going to contact a few other dance schools to see if I can find one like you are describing with a mix of ages and ideally not meaning she would have to stop the other sport.

I don't think she has any wildly ambitious dreams of becoming a ballerina more just that realisation that it was something she loved and let go too easily when smaller.
She is loving music and drama too at school so I think it's part of her discovery more about what she really enjoys.
And I am happy to support this within reason - I think anything that keeps her moving etc is a good thing. It's a great discipline .

Grade 3, she’ll most likely be with 10 year old so not that much younger. I’d always recommend dance at any age. Tell her to go for it!

Thanks we cross posted there but this is a good point maybe we just need to try a class and see how she feels after. The doubling up is also a good idea and makes me think I need to be mindful of the distance to the dance schools.

Good for her for realising she has made a mistake in dropping ballet, that in itself is a good life skill.

Thanks for that - it's true and I like to support her when we can.
She asked for a flute for her birthday after a few years of not getting much from piano lessons and she recently said it's changed her life - she now spends free time practicing / composing without ever needing to be nagged !

Anyway she is booked for a trial lesson -grade 2 - tomorrow at a very local school so we will see !
Thanks all the thread nudged me to get this sorted.

Could they put her in an adult class? I did ballet for a bit age 5-7ish, then restarted again at 14 and they put me in an adult beginners class. It was mostly women in their 30s/40s and another teenage boy (a dancer but hadn't done ballet before).

We went through the grades fairly quickly and I was doing grade 5 and 6 lessons by A levels (never did the exams as was concentrating on school exams).

It was 20 years ago now though so they might not like mixing kids in with adults these days.

Cross Post- hope she has fun at her trial lesson :)

My daughter is 12 and grade 4 but she's the youngest in her class. She does ballet twice a week - one in a non audition 'fun' class where she is the youngest and only one on pointe and once a week at an audition class through the local conservatoire that's much more serious - she was the last to go on pointe in that group.

In her local class it's kids of all abilities. They don't all do the gradings and many prefer the modern dance / contemporary dance aspects. Your daughter would be fine in that class so I encourage you to look for a similar class local to you. Hope she enjoys it!

I kept thinking I was too old to take up ballet again and now looking back I think what a shame that was! Good for your daughter.

My daughter's dance school does teen lessons specifically for those starting later/coming back to it . But also there are often a mix of ages in the normal classes as children start at different ages /learn at different paces etc

@Girasoli No, it is unlikely that a dance school would teach adults and older children in the same class - safeguarding and all that.

@holidayfever2024 Grade 2 is a bit on the low side for her age. If you need any advice, you can always PM me.

Grade 2 potentially feels a grade too low unless it’s joining a group that have been at the grade for a while. My 8yo will be in g2 after Easter once she’s done her g1 exam. Everyone in her class will be 8/9- there aren’t any older ones.

It may also be worth having a look at drama schools with a junior section rather than pure ballet schools as they might do a slightly less formal ballet class as lots of drama students will pick up ballet later.