Happy New Year and welcome to our winter newsletter! We do hope you had a lovely Christmas and that you enjoyed the party; it was great to see you all!
Term Dates
Monday 4th January to Wednesday 10th February 2016 (6 week term)
Term Fees
45-minute classes: £24.00
60-minute classes: £30.00
90-minute classes: £36.00
We have many exciting plans for the year ahead and, providing all our plans come together, we shall be very busy in 2016…
Exam Session – February
The exam session is Sunday 7th February. If you wish to take part but have not yet paid your exam fees please do as soon as possible as we are drawing up the timetable and costumes and we need to know exact numbers of who is taking part ASAP.
The Rest Of 2016….
Presentation Evening – July
We would like to hold a presentation evening, possibly at The Tower Theatre, to present the trophies and certificates. At the present time we hope this would be in July before we break for summer (TBC!).
On the evening alongside the presentation we would like to include a few dance numbers but, unfortunately, we cannot do a full-school show as the evening will run too long. So this time we are only going to invite the classes who did not take part in the exam session to perform, around 5 or 6 numbers to open the Presentation Evening.
For the first time we would also like to offer the opportunity for students to enter a piece of their own creation! We are aware that we have some talented pupils and if you have made your own dance routines or even if you sing or play an instrument come and show us! PLEASE NOTE: There will only be time for a couple of numbers so if we get lots of names we may not be able to accept everyone on this occasion – don’t be put off, there will be other opportunities!
Please add your name to the STUDENT CREATIVITY PERFORMANCE list on the registration desk and we will contact you.
If you are not part of either don’t worry, you will still be a very important part of the show and wanted on the stage to be presented with your trophies!
Summer Holidays
We enjoyed taking part in the Dymchurch Charity Fun Day and the All Saint’s Church Flower Festival last summer and we are looking at similar events to take part in this summer. We will keep you posted if any opportunities come up.
Autumn/Winter Term
As many of you who are entered into this exam session are taking awards, we thought it would be good to give you the opportunity to take a graded exam and move up a grade. We are considering October or November for this second session, depending on the number of those who are ready/wish to take part.
We would also like to do a full school show, again hopefully at the Tower Theatre, and we have begun thinking of themes. If we can fit it into this year then we will, although please be aware that if we run out of time this show may carry over into next year.
New Class! – FREESTYLERZ 11-16 Years
We have had enquiries about starting a version of our Freestylerz class for older pupils. Freestylerz is a fun, non-uniform, no exam, weekly 45-minute street/commercial dance class, currently for 5-11 year-olds. If you are interested in this class but aimed at an older age group please put your name on the list on the registration desk and we will be in touch to discuss times and locations. We would need at least 5 names to start the class.
IMPORTANT! Notice For Preliminary & Grade 1 Classes
At present, both these Monday classes are 60 minutes in length and we are finding it difficult to fit everything in. We would like to propose that these classes both go to 90 minutes per week in order for us to fit in Tap, Ballet and Modern technique training, exam preparation and performance work.
This would mean that Preliminary would be Mondays 4-5.30pm in the Main Hall and Grade One Mondays 4.30-6pm in the Small Hall, and would cost an extra £1 per week to cover the hall costs.
We would keep the existing hour as exam work and technique training, and use the additional 30 minutes for learning dance routines for performances. That way if you cannot do the extra 30 minutes you will still continue to progress with your class through your exams in your normal 60 minute class at £5 per week, although it may mean that you miss being in performances.
If you have any difficulties with this please do let us know! We would like to do this for the benefit of the pupils and are very happy to discuss it with you. We really feel that an extra 30 minutes per week will make a huge difference to the training and standard we can achieve with these two classes.
We would like to introduce this from next term (February). We have a confirmation list of those who would like to come for the extra 30 minutes at the registration desk for you to put your name down as a YES or a NO.
Depending on how many of you are happy with this we will book the hall and go ahead from next term (after half term in February). If the majority are not in favour we will leave the classes as they stand.
We look forward to hearing from you!
With thanks,
Charlotte, Brooke and Kim