I've posted about my younger brother before- there's a big age gap between us and my parents often ask me to help them make important decisions about him/his future. I'm not a third parent but I think they value my input which is nice.
He is in year 6 and next September is due to start at secondary school- this is a new environment for him obviously and there'll likely be only a few other children from his current primary school. I'm not too old to remember how hard it was making friends and feeling shy in the first few weeks of term.
My brother has recently auditioned for a big role in a west end musical. It's not the title role but probably the next biggest and requires a huge amount of energy and commitment. We are not based in London but it's one of the roles where the theatre company will house the child performers with chaperones and pay for everything: food, tuition and fun activities for the duration of the contract. He'll essentially be moving to London in January for rehearsals and then when he starts performing in the show he'll be working in alternate weeks- one week in London being tutored and living with chaperones and other children and one week at home. His contract is due to end towards the end of September next year which will mean potentially missing one or two weeks of a brand new school.
He has performed in a similar kind of show before (though there were key differences) but back then he was in primary school and had been at the school since he was very young. It was disruptive and hard work but he loved it.
He's worked incredibly hard to get selected as the auditions were tough and we're all very proud of him. However, I'm a little concerned about the potential impact of missing a few weeks of school right at the very start and whether this will affect him making friends. We haven't signed the contract yet but I wondered whether it would be unreasonable to let him go for it?