Dance - compulsory workshops

[BackInTime]

DD (13) attends a dance school and is part of the schools group for competitions and festivals. The school has recently started offering workshops and boot camps with guest teachers and they are now saying that it is compulsory for all members of the competition group to attend. These sessions are pretty expensive on top of all the other fees. DD attends all the required regular lessons and training sessions for the competition groups. She has attended some workshops in the past and found them fun but didn't always learn a lot. I am feeling a bit pressured that we have to say yes to everything or she will be dropped but still loathe to keep shelling out at every whim of the dance school.

Would be interested to hear from anyone else with DC that dance and if this sort of requirement to attend I everything is the norm?

TIA

I think it depends very much on the school but from what I have seen if they have a competition team and lots who would like to be in it then they call the shots and can make any demands they want to because if your child won't do it then someone else will.

I would personally prefer to avoid schools like this.

of course there are other schools with a much more relaxed policy on it all

Sadly it seems that most of the schools around here have jumped on the commercial bandwagon. Lots of £££ to be made I guess from parents who are too afraid to say no.

I know of a few dance schools who do this but they are ones we avoided d. Dd (now in professional training) had very strict criteria for workshops and summer schools usually consisting of Will I learn something from this, Will it help develop my technique, Will I get individual corrections or is it about the kudos of a name and packing in as many participants as possible.

Very good criteria @Comefromaway pretty much how I have been thinking about these events given the feedback from DD. Unfortunately it is increasingly difficult to escape schools that go down this route as there are many ultra competitive dance mom types that will sign up kids for everything regardless of the quality of the event. DD is also feeling under pressure to self promote on social media. Many of her friends have dance profile pages with lots of dance pose photos (mostly leg tilts in skimpy leotards) tagging dancewear brands trying to self promote and become brand ambassadors. This is all such a far cry from where we started when she was 4

I have to be honest and say that dd never had the inclination for competitions and when she was on a performance team there were no such requirements.

My DD goes to a school that has done very well in festivals previously, but she's never done any herself - the school is fine with pupils just doing the classes if they don't want to do festivals and/or exams. It wasn't something I wanted her to do tbh, we just didn't have the time for all the extra (regular) classes.

Try and encourage her to not do the whole instagram thing, it must be so hard for them nowadays with the social media peer pressure. I agree a lot of dance schools are going too far with the competition culture. I do like festivals and competitions to a point and I think they serve a purpose. If the children enjoy them and learn from them then they are great but the Dance Moms culture is definitely becoming more commonplace now and I don't like that.