Class Evaluations & Recommendations

We can’t believe that we’re writing and preparing Class Evaluations and Recommendations for the 2016-2017 school year!  This year has FLOWN by and we are so proud of all of our students and the work they’ve done this year.

It’s the time of year that all activities publish their summer schedules, summer camps open registration, and students start looking ahead to next year.  Our teachers are doing the same thing.  We’re watching carefully in our leveled classes to help recommend the best fit for classes for this summer and next year for each and every student. This year, we will be mailing home the Class Evaluations and Recommendations in order to make sure that parents and students receive the information (you should get them over spring break).  This will help eliminate any lost papers, papers stuck in the bottom of dance bags, etc.

Recommendations and evaluations are one of the most difficult things dance teachers do.  We truly want nothing but the best experience for each student – and we know that recommendations to progress to the next level are greeted with great excitement while recommendations to stay in the same level for another season to really master the material are sometimes met with disappointment.

We believe that going through both of these situations are great life experiences for dancers – we learn to handle excitement and disappointment that will be faced later in life – in academic classes, school groups, job searches, and after school in the real world.  

We also completely understand that to students, the recommendations carry a heavy weight.  We do our very best to communicate well in classes and to help students manage their expectations, but we need some help on the home front.

Parents, please help remind your students of what we’ve told them so far in class – the name of the class we recommend does not determine your students’ worth, value, or how much their teachers like them.   Every single teacher at The Pointe is committed to providing the best dance education and experience for each student.  It is not safe or positive to have someone in a class level beyond their current skill set.  Knowing our curriculum and the current skill set and strengths of each dancer helps us prevent dancers from being in situations where they would be uncomfortable and unable to fully progress with the class, or in a situation where they could risk injury.

Most students will spend two years in each Graded Technique Level (Level 1 +) although every dancer’s journey is different.  Dancers who take more classes are likely to progress through the levels quicker – though the genres are very different, training in each genre helps the others.  Dancers who take tap often grasp musicality and difficult rhythms of movement in ballet and jazz faster than dancers without tap experience.  Strengthening and stretching muscle groups in jazz helps dancers execute steps in ballet with more precision and accuracy.  Ballet training brings a greater sense of body awareness, posture, and control to tap and jazz.

Our recommendation forms include specific skills that must be mastered before progressing to the next level, general notes on the technique of each dancer (strength, flexibility, control, etc), and notes on attendance and work ethic in class, plus room for more detailed feedback from each instructor.  We think these are valuable tools for communication between our school, dance students, and their parents.  Sometimes disappointing news for a student leads to great conversations about how to help the student achieve their dance goals – and helps connect the dancer, parents, and teacher to create the best path forward to help the student out.

We are always available (after spring break) to answer any questions about these evaluations and recommendations.  Dancers are welcome to request a meeting with Miss Vanessa or any instructor to go over details of their recommendation or chat about their dance goals.

Have a wonderful spring break, dancers!  We are proud of you, excited to finish this year strong, and make next year (somehow!) even better than this one for every single dancer that comes through our doors.

-Miss Vanessa