<B>Junior showtime</B><BR>Performing arts classes boost children's self-confidence, tolerance and fitness. So it is little wonder they're booming, says Susan Elkinm in The Daily Telegraph<P><BR>NINE children aged seven to nine are cheerfully enjoying a Saturday morning dance lesson. But it's a far cry from those old-fashioned, part-time ballet schools - you know, the ones run by rouged old ladies with tinny pianos for precocious children and their competitively pretentious mothers. These children sport T-shirts, loose trousers and "jazz shoes". Although it's very disciplined, there isn't a tutu or a barre in sight. It's more along the lines of Billy Elliot than The Red Shoes.<P> <BR>Acting up: youngsters enjoying their Stagecoach sessons <P>"Skip, jump, march," calls the charismatic teacher, Lisa Jayn Gordon, energetically giving instructions for each eight-bar sequence and offering individual advice and unpressurised encouragement over the music. "Stretch up. Tuck your tummy buttons in. Smile." She knows every child by name.<P>Frankly, it all looks such fun I have to restrain myself from jumping up to join in. And, despite all the recent medical hand-wringing about the increase in sluggish, obese, telly addict children, there isn't a couch potato in sight. Although they probably don't realise it, whatever else they're learning, these youngsters are getting a first-class whole-body fitness routine.<P><A HREF="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/main.jhtml?xml=%2Ffamily%2F2002%2F03%2F09%2Ffmkid09.xml" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>