Dance exams
We offer examinations with The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD), which are internationally recognised dance examinations. Dance exams are held twice a year across the whole range of dance genres and grades we teach, and we pride ourselves on achieving a 100% pass rate.
Although not every child wishes to take dance exams, they are a valuable and rewarding experience which allows us to chart their progression and improvements in technique throughout their dance training.
On the whole we keep our dance class sizes small: we don’t believe that bigger is better, and smaller class sizes mean that your child receives more individual attention.
Our Contemporary dance syllabus also has the option for dance exams and medal tests, as does the Acrobatic Arts syllabus we follow.
Competitions
As well as offering examinations we enter our students into The Guernsey Festival of Dance, which is a biennial event, a celebration of dance held early in the Spring Term.
As an all-inclusive school, we enter all of our pupils from age 6 years upwards in group dances, solos, duets, trios and quads.
The Festival is open to all Channel Island Dance Schools and, like the Eisteddfod, it is a competition. It involves rehearsals on or about the same time as existing classes and culminates in a performance on the stage in the Beau Sejour Theatre.
Selected students are also invited to be part of an away team that travels to other competitions such as the Jersey Eisteddfod, Dance World Cup (the location of which changes yearly), Southampton Festival, Weymouth Festival, and the Jersey Dance Awards.
The Academy Dance Concerts
Following the festival, we present our own School Show which gives all our pupils the opportunity to enjoy further performances and gain more valuable stage experience.
These shows are always popular with family and friends of our students and also involve the on-stage debut of our youngest dancers at the school: our Pre-School and Reception ballet, tap & modern classes.
Workshops
Each year we run week-long workshops based around different themes such as the seasons, Roald Dahl and The Wizard of Oz either in Easter or Summer. During this time we work on dances, songs and acting/drama pieces with a performance for parents at the end of the week in our studio.
We also bring visiting teachers over from the UK to run specialist workshops in different fields to give our students a wider variety of dance experience.
Other opportunities
We took part in the Tapathon in 2016, 2019 and 2021. This event raises money for Children In Need by aiming to break the world record for the most dancers tapping at the same time across the UK. We will be taking part again in 2023!
Our dancers regularly perform at Arts Sunday events on open air stages in town. This gives our students another opportunity to perform their concert and festival routines to help continue to develop their performance and improve self-confidence.
We have also been invited several times to help raise money for local charities such as the Orca Trust by students volunteering to dance in theatre performances as fundraisers.