Hello everyone,
I'm a student of higher education and I teach RAD ballet. I'm conductiond a survey to collect data for an assignment. Its for teachers, and it concerns what we do when some of our students are not as able as the rest of the class, or perhaps considerably more able than the rest.
please visit this link:
http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2258AUZ75T5

and complete the survey. It is completely anonymous and it will only take a few minutes!
thanks -
Zohar

Hi Zulli

I would be happy to complete your survey but I am not an RAD teacher.

Are you happy for non RAD teachers to complete your survey? I know there are a lot of teachers who read these boards but not many are RAD.

Hi Joanne,
Thanks for replying!
I don't mind if you're a "proper" RAD teacher or not, as long as you teach ballet. However, the questions are on issues like when to enter students for an examination or not and you'll find you need to just be generally familiar with what a "vocational" or "higher grades" syllabus is otherwise you won't know what the questions are all about. I suggest you simply enter the survey, and if you feel you're not familiar enough with the terms, you can always change your mind
thanks again for the help,
Zulli

No problem Zulli - I teach in the UK for another syllabus so I think most of it will apply.

Excellent. If you have any problems accessing the site, let me know.
By the way, if you're interested in giving your general opinion on the topic here, feel free. I'm especially interested in knowing what you think "ability" is. On the face of it it seems that we all know what we mean when we talk to each other about "able" and "less able" students, but when you ask people to define ability, you'll find each one will give a different definition.

Zulli,

I think most people with sufficient training can show ability in ballet. I think probably what teachers find hardest to define is "natural ability".

When you see a student with natural ability I tend to see that the student has naturally good posture and turnout, strong feet which they naturally know how to stretch, good rhythm and musical awareness and good co-ordination - all this with not much prompting from the teacher.

They students may not always be the most enthusiastic or the hardest worker but if they are they usually take ideas and teaching on board very quickly and can apply them very successfully.

As for less able students - it can be heartbreaking, they can quite often be some of the hardest workers, really eager to please but perhaps their anatomy does not make them natural dancers. With these students I think the best thing is to encourage their stronger points and try and work on making the best of their weaker areas. When it comes down to it even if these students may not make professional dancers they can still gain a lot from the study of ballet and I think exam boards are getting better at realsing this and marking students accordingly.

Ballet can also be of great help to some students who have posture problems so for teachers or exam boards to not offer a place in their hierarachy for them would be foolish.

I really like that the RAD made some huge changes to its system and revamped the children's work about a dozen years ago (or maybe it's been more like 15!). It's smart having two tracks -- the "grades" and what they are now calling "vocational" aka, "the majors." I also like how they've changed the exam situation, where I believe the student can request feedback "assessment" as opposed to a strict exam.

The RAD has been one of those big ships that's hard to turn but it's been doing so (not without some angst and blood on the rug) and I think it and the students and teachers it serves are better for it.

I used to teach the Grades (and took the Boys' Major work) but dropped out from the system only because the studios I was working for (and one for which I still teach) either wouldn't allow me to enter students into exams or introduce the RAD work where I felt it might be appropriate (Boys, for example). Ah, well -- their loss...

So I do applaude those teachers that can successfully integrate the RAD into their teaching syllabi.