Is Your Ballet Teacher Qualified?

Royal Academy of Dance advises parents to check the ballet teacher’s qualifications.

20:47 21 December 2015

Royal Academy of Dance said that parents should check the ballet teacher’s qualifications before putting their children into dance classes to prevent “untold physical damage.”

 

Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) has warned that unqualified ballet teachers who lack important training in anatomy and physiology can cause children “untold damage.” As such, it encourages parents to carefully check the ballet teacher’s qualifications before putting their children into dance classes.

 

RAD chief executive, Luke Rittner said that these teachers “target little children from as young as 18 months to five or six years.

He added: "I have many young children coming to my school who are three or four years old, who have had baby ballet training from 18 months and simply cannot apply any ballet movement.

"The children cannot stretch or flex their feet or simply skip. These children have bad posture and no technique."

 

23-year-old Gina Raffaini started at a local ballet school at five and began pointe training before she was 10. By 16, she developed bunions and required operation that involved inserting screws in her feet.

 

She said: "I would say the early dance training did impact on it.”

 

Kim Frost, a qualified dance teacher in Yorkshire, said that there are many children who attended ballet classes "with absolutely no understanding of correct posture, alignment and how to use turnout correctly.”