To be shocked at the extras added to ballet exam costs?

[splishsplosh]

One of my dds wants to go to ballet, so I asked my friend about the kind of costs that would be involved if I enrolled her.

She's recently paid £68 for a £38 exam. When she asked the lady running it what the extra costs were for she was told that they covered things like pianist fee, her own time, parking costs for herself and the pianist, money for lunches for herself, pianist, examiner, things to do the hair of anyone coming without their own and her time spent chasing up any late exam payments.

As the children take the exam in 2s or 3s, an exam takes about half an hour, and they have a full day of exams, surely charging an extra £30 per child per exam is excessive? The lady running it must make at least £600 in that 1 day - the costs of parking and lunch can't justify so much can it?

AIBU to be shocked at this? Or is this pretty standard, and what I should expect if my dd goes to ballet and ends up doing exams?

Sounds ridiculously expensive

I'm awaiting Septembers uniform list and not looking forward to it as I suspect it will be custom made not generic from IDS & Dance Direct.

£400 sounds like a lot, but thinking about it DD's must be £250, although it isn't replaced every year. Why does it cost £400? Does she have more than one uniform, maybe for different classes?

Sorry, he, not she.

Yes, boys have to wear regulation leotards to exams too, but DSS wears it to class each week. He owns a grand total of 2 leotards.

Reading this is making me so grateful for DD's school, which throws extra preparation lessons in for free and goes out of their way to keep things affordable. The only exam extra I've ever been charged was for the time DD got a ladder in her tights during the pre-exam runthrough, and they had to replace them - they were really apologetic about charging me the 6 quid for a new pair.

A lot of dd's stuff is 2nd hand but totting it all up:

Navy RAD ballet leotard £18
Convertible ballet tights £6
Capezio natural tights for shows £7
Leather ballet shoes £10
Character Skirt £20
Character Shoes £12
Black cross strap tap/modern leotard £16
Black Footless Tights £3
Tap Shoes £30 (basic ones £15 but she's now got Capezio split soles)
Cross over warm up cardigan £12
Hair nets/bobbles/grips £5
Dance Bag £12

So around £150 total - not too bad

At the time he was about 15 and his tap shoes alone were about 60 quid. He had all sorts in their, warm up gear etc.
I'm more frugal with dd and have saved all hers for dd2.
It's expensive butler hobbies are and two of my ds went on to have a career in entertainment and dd hopes to.
I danced on cruises and its a great experience.

For DS we paid for the exam and are paying for a few weeks of extra lessons. I've ordered a new leotard and shorts, but that is my choice.

But we are only at the pre-primary stage - I have no idea if it will change if he sticks with it.

we do the IDTA syllabus, and pay around £10 per exam, but tend to do several at a time. That covers the exam fee and all the running costs, including costume hire, the hair ladies, and the extra staff to supervise in the changing room.

For shows we pay costume hire only, and the ticket prices are kept as low as possible (I paid £2.75 per person for the last one ).

It really varies from school to school doesn't it!

I suspect there is a massive difference between the IDTA and the Royal Academy. DD has done both and the IDTA seems more relaxed.

Buying the teachers lunch is a bit suspect - surely she eats on other days?

I'm with Ledkr on the Tap shoes. DS is 11 with size 8 feet. His last pair bought 3 weeks ago cost £38. I can only imagine it getting more costly as he gets older. I couldn't say how much has been spent over the years on all his lessons and now DDs lessons, shows, exams, costumes etc.

I'd weep

Our principal makes every effort to keep fees as affordable as possible for all parents. She would NOT charge for lunches and parking.

I'd like to go to one of those cheaper dance schools.
Having a boy was often unfair too.
I paid the same as the girls for a costume and they'd have a tutu and he'd have a tunic and wear his own tights n shoes.
Same with tap he'd have a waistcoat and I'd have to provide "his school shirt and black trousers" obviously they've never seen a boys school uniform after a few wears so obviously I bought new.
For that reason I became handy with the sewing machine and made his own costumes.

Yep. Totally agree. For the last show in March we were told that one of the costumes would be soo easy. Generic Red school jumper, grey shorts.

Not an issue for an 11 yr old.
Except DS is 5 foot 5. There are no grey school shorts to fit a child that height. Even the bloody jumper took some searching for. I invested in a sewing machine.

We are paying adult prices for everything.

With regards to fees, I meant extras like costumes and show tickets and transport. Class fees are as standard, no exceptions.

Any perceived additional expense on the part of boys doing ballet is worth it though, as they get some of the best roles in the productions, with there being so few of them.

True scholes but ds was ill once for a festival and of course had all the lead roles so was not very popular. It was awful.

I run a school in Oxford and I just wanted to confirm to anyone reading this why the £30 is justifiable.

Firstly no teacher I have ever met makes a profit on exams. It is very rare for the principal to pay themselves anything for a full days work that normally starts at around 6am with preparations and finishes at 6pm after packing up. There's also around 15-30 hours of administration booking the exams, the pianist, the venue, sending the exam letters to parents, chasing them, collecting and processing fees and chasing late payments that they are unlikely to have charged you for.

In my experience

• a venue costs on average £20 per hour (£5 per student)
• a pianist costs £20-30 per hour (£5-7.50 per student)
• an assistant to help with doing hair, preparing lunches, seeing the children in and out of the exam costs between £8-15 per hour (this is hard to cost exactly per student as they are normally at the venue being cared for for around 2 hours including before, during and after the exam.)
• I would estimate hair pins, grips, bands, net, ribbon, hair spray and gel come to about £3 per student
• other expenses like parking, exam equipment, lunches etc can vary depending on circumstances.

Hope this helps everyone understand that your ballet teacher isn't in it for profit. They only run exams for the benefit of your children and have probably spent hours for free preparing for classes, administering the exams and many sleepless nights thinking about them.

I hope you and your children have many happy exam memories to take with you into the future!

Hi, my Daughter has recently started a dance school for ballet, they put her straight into grade 2, then last week I got a call to move her dance days for grade 1 lessons, now I have been told she has to wait until february for her dance lessons to start back up as they are busy with others. I feel she will get further behind. all the while I am conscious of the expense of everything as it is costing £18 per week for her lessons. I am wondering if I can just get her a dvd and she learn this way until she catches up and to book her in wqith an examiner for a exam myself when she seems to be doing the dancing spot on like the tutorial. Has anyone else managed to do the dancing for their children this way as I am curious, Thanks in advance. x

The school is a business and the business owner (teacher) has a right to set whatever price she sees fit because she is entitled to not just cover her costs but to make a profit. You, as the customer, have the right to go elsewhere if you think her prices too expensive. There is a lot of overhead with a dance school that people don't see: the cost of room hire, annual membership of the examining body isn't free nor is public liability insurance, factor in also that teachers have to take professional exams themselves to keep and upgrade their teaching qualifications and make sure they're compliant with syllabus.

While it does sound like quite a big mark up, it doesn't sound excessive to me, there is presumably quite large associated cost when running an exam day. Pianist, hall hire, lunches, hair etc can all add up pretty quickly I would think. And the ballet teacher is running a business, so is entitled to charge for her time too.

Only the OP can decide if it's worth the money. Ballet schools are usually more expensive than some other childrens activities as they are run as a business, unlike some other clubs, such as cubs or football , which are generally run by volunteers and are therefore cheaper.