Anyone's child done dance teacher training as a teenager?.

[Ballettapp80]

So dd 15 has been asked to undergo her dance teacher training.

I have some questions,
Whilst training, did your dc get paid or was this only when fully qualified?
Did you have to pay money for a teacher to help with the theory?
Was your child an assistant alongside a qualified teacher whilst they trained? Or did they take classes by themselves(maybe with someone nearby)
Did you child have to get to a certain grade before becoming qualified. From what they've said to me she won't become fully qualified for 3 years as the teacher wants her to be at a certain level in ballet.
So she could be potentially teaching for 3 years unpaid and have done the theory but won't get a penny.
I don't know if this is the norm?

I've NC for this reply.

Firstly, which exam board is the dance school with?

No, she won't be paid. It's usually seen as a fair trade as she's offering assistance and getting qualifications in return.

She will probably start off assisting, then eventually she will take classes on her own.

This is pretty standard in the dance industry and how the majority of teachers become qualified.

It's the UKA exam board

I'm not familiar with that one.

What is your concern, that she won't be paid?

I've never heard of that exam board. What is the name of the qualification at the end of it, and what genre of dance would she be teaching?

Please bear in mind that no teenager will have anywhere near enough knowledge of anatomy & physiology, child development or dance technique to be able to teach young dancers.

I'm afraid that there are a lot of dance schools out there which offer trainee teacher programmes like this to their older students, but the qualification at the end of it is really not worth the paper it is written on. Meanwhile, the dance school gets plenty of teenagers teaching classes for free.

Sorry to put such a downer on it.

My DD is a dance teacher. She's qualified with the RAD and she did her teacher training after she had graduated with a degree in dance. She also started doing the ISTD Diploma in Dance Education, which is their initial teacher qualification when she was in 6th form but she dropped out because the workload was too high on top of her A levels and her own dance lessons. She thought it would be manageable but significantly underestimated quite how much content there is in the course.
I'm also not familiar with UKA but both the RAD and ISTD require applicants to have passed at least the Intermediate vocational grades in the genre they are training to teach before they can even start the teaching courses. I would expect any reputable organisation to have a similar standard.
My DD assisted with classes and then planned and taught her own as a trainee but with supervision from a qualified teacher. She wasn't paid as it was a training opportunity for her, and the teacher whose school it was was still ultimately responsible for the class.I feel pretty strongly that unqualified people, especially teenagers, should not be taking a class without supervision to be honest and if it looks like your DD is going to be put in that position I would run a mile.

I've also not heard of UKA exam board.

My DD is also a ballet teacher and qualified with BBO after graduating from vocational ballet school with a degree in dance

There is a high level of knowledge of pedagogy required as well anatomy and physiology

I would suggest you look at the RAD/BBO/IDTA/ISTD web pages

Does your daughter want to teach ballet as a career

I did this with UKA and got the student teacher certificate, which from memory you then have to do further work to become an actual qualified teacher - which I then never did as I went off to uni.
I enjoyed learning the anatomy and physiology aspects, I loved helping with the kids' classes and would never have expected to have been paid. It was an enjoyable process.

However, it was a very low key local dance school, and what I learned once older is that UKA is not a well known (or well-regarded) exam board. ISTD seems to be the gold standard, so I think if she wants to do this seriously, she'd be best to research options.

I did it because it was fun and interesting, but I was never going to be an exceptional dancer.

@Ballettapp80 Hi OP, what grade ballet is your dd currently studying? That would help to give us an idea of what sort of dance teacher training would suit her, and when, so that we can advise you.

Yes, there are two levels with it so she probably won't become fully qualified before she goes off to uni!

My concerns are is that she is being used in replacement for a teacher not being in the lesson with a qualified teacher.

I think you need to ask more questions and think about how much is in it for your DD and how much it benefits the school principal. How much of her time will it take? Is the qualification/experience actually worth anything to her going forwards eg does she plan to work within the dance world or with children? Even though there is no pay, are there any perks to the job? For instance, though my DD was never paid for helping her teacher, if someone cancelled their private lesson DD would always be offered it and I never saw a bill for any of those extras.
To be honest, the fact that so far none of us whose children have trained full time/work in the field have ever heard of UKA raises alarm bells for me. I'm not sure how transferable this qualification would be if she did want to continue teaching. The big organisations such as the ones mentioned upthread, have a mutual recognition scheme for their teacher qualifications, as well as schools all over the place, including other countries, so there's a good range of employment possibilities. I'm not sure the same can be said of this exam board. I would dig deeper as you don't want your DD wasting her time on a qualification which is ultimately of no benefit to her, especially with exam years at school looming. And you are absolutely right not to want her to be left alone with a class. That's not good for her, or her pupils. I think there is a lot to be gained by assisting a teacher in the teenage years if it's done well, but done badly it is basically exploitation and very poor practice in my opinion.

Those would be my concerns too. She is under 18, has no teaching experience and is completely unqualified. What if there were an accident or some sort of emergency during the class - how would she cope? Surely the school's insurance policy and safeguarding documents should mean that this ought not to be allowed? How will she be receive teacher training herself if she is not under the direct supervision of a qualified teacher?

Not to mention - other parents are paying for their child's dance classes, and have the right to expect them to be taught by a qualified professional.

your DD is under 18 and so should bot be teaching any classes of children without the supervision of a qualified teacher. There is no harm in her working towards the student teacher certificate, however the bulk of the training should be sitting in observing the teacher and making notes, assisting with classes and focusing on learning about child development, anatomy and safe and correct teaching methods. She should not be getting paid unless it is in a class assistant capacity only, and definitely should not be paid for teaching. If she has to attend any additional classes for theory / coaching towards the exam these will be expected to be paid for to whoever is delivering these classes (although some teachers will offer these free as an exchange for assisting) and you will be expected to cover the cost of the STC exam and any required teaching materials such as syllabus and theory books. There will also be an annual membership fee to pay to the exam board if she passes the exam if she wants to register as a member. The UKA (United Kingdom Alliance) is one of the smaller and lesser known UK examination boards, however their graded examinations are OFQUAL accredited and so are classed as equivalent to ISTD or RAD in terms of qualifications. They also offer non-accredited medal tests and domesticated grades (class tests) for children as well.