Did / Does Anyone's Daughter Go To a Dance School?

[Emily90]

Hi, my daughter is coming up to two years old, and so I am thinking ahead about starting her in a dance school once COVID is done.

How do you go about finding a good one? We live in Birmingham. My motivation for starting her at a dance school is for the community, friendship, and commitment aspects. My cousin in Belfast used to irish dance at a school that travelled all over, and it formed a huge part of her life. I am not looking for irish dance, but a more general school.

How did you find yours? How have you / your daughter found it? What kind of costs are involved, roughly?

Thank you for any advice, Emily

[Floridatilly]

My daughter does. At a young age I would choose a local school and see how she gets on. It just happened the our closest school of dance is very highly regarded and many go into professional dancing. The exams must be taken to move up so it’s certainly not just for those looking for a hobby.
Some of my daughters friends go to less strict school and enjoy no pressure of exams etc.
It is a wonderful thing, you get lots of friends and it’s excellent exercise. I danced until I was 18 and so did my sister 👍🏻 We all did ballet, tap, modern etc but there are lots of other options like street dancing, cheer leading etc
Go and watch a few lessons before you commit but most if all just enjoy it 😁

[Geordieprincess]

My daughter started dancing when she was just turned 2. I just googled dance schools near me then looked at the classes they had on offer. I only found one school in the area that took them from age 2, most you had to be 3. If I was looking now I’d throw the question on our community Facebook page.

The classes for 2 year olds (I’m going back 9 years though) were £2.50 for half an hour and a mix of ballet, nursery rhymes and modern. Only needed ballet shoes and skirted leotard so very cheap and very informal.

After 2 years she moved up to a more formal class - an hour of ballet, tap and modern for £5, she now does 90mins for £8. And she needs ballet, tap, jazz shoes and while they train in dance school logo leggings and t shirt, they also need leotard and tights and hair buns for exams.

They did exams (Nursery and primary grades) every year which cost around £10-15 per exam (but ballet, tap and modern separate after nursery grades so about £40 per year) and a show every 2 years (buy your own costumes, they tried to keep them cheap but still around £50 for 3 costumes) and family obviously still pay for tickets to watch the show (ours was at local theatre and about £15 per ticket) unless you volunteer to be a chaperone and watch from the wings.

Can do competitions too, my daughter did 2 but we decided it wasn’t for us as it was a bit full on with the makeup and costumes. The competitions you pay to enter (Our local ones were generally £3-5 per dance), pay as a parent to watch (About £5 Per competition), costumes can be expensive and obviously depends how far you want to travel to take part. A work friend had a daughter who did the big ballroom dancing competitions eg in Blackpool and that was a whole different level of expense vs what I’m talking about.

My daughter is 11 now and has just passed her grade 1 in ballet, tap and modern as they held exams in person in Dec during the brief lockdown break. She still enjoys it but most of the girls she started with have left over the years. It’s back on zoom now where they only do 1 hour for £5, but it’s not the same.

I’m aware our dancing school is at the cheaper end of the scale compared to some of the stage school type places around or the ballroom circuit, but I seem to be forever forking out for new shoes, classes, exams etc. She enjoys it though and gets a huge buzz from the shows. She was also in a Rapunzel panto 2 years ago which she auditioned for separately to the dance school and was due to do another one if it hadn’t been for Covid. Even that cost £50 for the rehearsals and souvenir t shirt and obviously we all bought tickets to see it.

[novocastrian]

my daughter started at 2 with a local school, she moved to another aged around 2.5 years & had been there ever since she is nearly 16

the first school was ran by a lady who took it all a bit to seriously , was very officious wanting to be called Miss XXXX even by the toddlers

The currecnt school is a lot more friendly/informal but is still very well regarded with examiners etc etc etc

uniforms / shows / rehearsals / costumes etc etc all cost a few quid , she dosnt do freestyle (which seems crazy money to me ) but they do have a freestyle squad. She prefers classical ballet, tap, jazz & modern/disco

fee's are not half as bad as some local schools i think we pay 20 a week for iirc 5 lessons of 1-1.5 hours + we pay per lesson for pointe class, as not everyone does pointe

the annual show / presentation evening / party was always a big event & hopefully they can have one later in 2021

has grade 6 in ballet & tap a big achievement aged 15

she has performed in pantos and classical ballets outside of the school as well (with the schools blessing)

she has made lifelong friends, her longest best pal they met when they were 2 at the first school, moving schools together, they are still thick as thieves at near 16

weve always said if she ever wanted to quit then its upto her but she needs to find another interest & not spend her time hanging about the streets like me & her mam did at her age...

[Evil queen]

I just asked around at the school gates (a bit tricky these days!) as my daughter loved dancing and was a bit pigeon toed and clumsy so I though ballet might help. It did! She is 16 now, looking to go to dance/drama school when she is 18. I think it has helped her confidence massively, the group of friends she has at dance are girls from different schools and backgrounds which is great and her dance teachers whilst strict and quite traditional in their approach to technique are great. Certainly their relationship has changed as the girls have got older. I’d say she dances around 8 hours a week plus this opened up opportunities with associate programmes that she does monthly. She started with ballet and tap and then as they get a bit older modern and then jazz. She does some acrobatic arts too within the school. She will Covid allowing have the opportunity to help out with the younger classes too which will be good for her. It does cost me an arm and a leg though and I do seem to spend a lot of time sat in random car parks late at night 😂 Cost wise it isn’t too bad when they are little, it escalates as they get older with longer and more frequent lessons, more shoes, uniforms, costumes and the exams get more expensive as you go along although that is set by the exam boards rather than the dance school, travel and hotels if they do the conferences/conventions.
I’d suggest asking around locally and then when they are open again most will offer a trial lesson where you will get an idea of the style of teaching and general feel of the school. It’s lovely to see them grow and develop, I used to go to the shows wondering if my child who was just about pointing her toes would ever become like the seniors who were just stunning. I don’t know what kind of magic they weave but she did- as did most of them. It sorted the pigeon toed clumsiness out too!