Where this school stops

We are teachers, and none of us is a physician or a therapist

We can change what a class asks of a body. We cannot diagnose, treat or clear anybody to return.

Teachers, not clinicians
No diagnosis, no clearance to return
We teach inside a clinician's restriction

Injuries happen, and our teachers know technique, not medicine

Dance puts load through growing bodies and injuries happen — mostly ankles, knees and the lower back, mostly from doing too much too soon. Our teachers know a great deal about technique that prevents them and nothing whatever about diagnosing them.

What we do when a student is hurt in class

If a student is hurt in class we will stop them, telephone the guardian and write down what we saw. What we will not do is tell you what is wrong, tell you it is nothing, recommend a treatment, or decide when it is safe to come back.

Our teachers are teachers. Our teachers are teachers. Nobody here diagnoses an injury, recommends a treatment or decides when a student may return; bring us a clinician's restriction and we will teach inside it.

Coming back from an injury

A student returning from an injury needs their clinician's view, not ours, and we will happily adapt a class around a restriction that a clinician has set. Tell us what they said and we will work inside it.

Where this leaves you

What to do instead

Bring us the restriction rather than the diagnosis. "No jumping for six weeks" is something we can teach around; "her knee hurts" is something we should not be interpreting.

The rest of where we stop

Five more lines this school does not cross

We do not enter students for a named board's examinations

Graded examinations are run by real organisations, teaching them requires registration, and we do not claim it.

Not here: There are several well-known organisations that set graded examinations in dance and in music. Teaching their syllabus and entering candidates requires a school and its teachers to be registered with that organisation, and that registration is earned and can be checked.
What to do instead: Ask any school you are considering which board they are registered with and ask to see it. A school that is registered will be pleased to tell you. A school that answers vaguely is answering.

We do not promise where a student will end up

No school can tell you what a seven-year-old will be able to do at seventeen, and one that does is selling you something else.

Not here: A great deal of marketing in this trade is built on outcome: the alumni who dance professionally, the students who were accepted somewhere, the percentage who passed something. Those numbers are usually true and almost always meaningless, because the students who go on to do those things were going to be remarkable in any decent school.
What to do instead: Judge a class by watching one. A trial class costs nothing here for exactly this reason: it is the only evidence about a school that is not marketing.

There are no auditions for any class in this school

Every class here is entered by enrolling, and every ensemble is entered by turning up.

Not here: No class in this timetable is auditioned. The level bands are about where a student will learn best, not about who is good enough, and a student who is in the wrong one is moved by a conversation rather than by a test.
What to do instead: If you want an auditioned, selective programme — and there are good reasons to want one for a committed teenager — those exist in this city and we will name the ones we rate.

We are a school, not childcare

A class is forty-five to seventy-five minutes and an adult must be reachable for every minute of it.

Not here: Students under twelve must be collected from the studio door by a named adult, and we will not release a child to anybody who is not on the form. For students in First Steps an adult stays in the building for the whole class.
What to do instead: If what you need is cover for a working afternoon rather than a class, an after-school programme is the right shape and is regulated differently. We would rather point you at one than take the fee.

Nobody photographs or films in our building without consent on file

Every image of a student is covered by a consent that a guardian gave and can withdraw.

Not here: Photography and filming inside the studios by parents, students or visitors is not permitted at any time, including in the corridor through the window into Studio A. This is not about our images; it is that a photograph of one child is a photograph of eleven others.
What to do instead: If you want a photograph of your own child dancing, ask. We will arrange five minutes in an empty studio, which produces a better picture than a phone in a dark theatre ever will.

Fall Term 2026 · enrolment open · one free trial per student per discipline

Book a free trial class, or enrol for the term

A trial is a real class and the student joins in. It is the only evidence about a school that is not marketing, which is why it costs nothing. If the class you want is full you will be offered the waiting list instead, with the position you would be in — a number, not a promise to be in touch.

Book a free trial See the timetable