How to choose a dance school that is right for you

So you have decided to take up Ballroom and Latin dancing, and now you need to find a dance school.  Unsurprisingly, dance schools vary greatly in what they offer and the quality of their tuition.  This article is intended to help guide the new dancer in finding the right school for them, but it applies equally to the existing dancer who is considering trying out a new school.

Types of Ballroom and Latin School

There are four types of Ballroom and Latin dance schools:

  • Competition

  • Exam

  • Social

  • Children

Whilst most schools will do a mix of all four, they will generally have a primary focus.  Whilst there is nothing wrong with for example taking social tuition at a school that is competition focused, each school generally focuses on what they are best at.  As such your needs may be better served at a school whose primary aims match yours.

Competitive

As the name suggests, a competitive dance school has its main focus on dance competitions.  Picture Strictly Come Dancing, at a variety of levels from beginner to advanced.

Pros of a competitive school:

  • This type of school should be very good at putting together choreography and pulling out attractive styling from its dancers.

Cons of a competitive school:

  • Until the higher level, the instructors will have to work within a strict syllabus, meaning they work on what they have to rather than what most suits the student;

  • The competitive dance world can be stressful and involve travelling all over the county to compete;

  • Whilst competitive students tend to look quite nice, their tuition usually lacks the floor craft and variety required to dance away from a competition floor.

Exam

An exam school has its main focus on examinations, usually medal tests.

Pros of an exam school

  • Students from a good exam school tend to have accurate footwork and be more technically correct than average students in other types of schools.

Cons of any exam school

  • As with competition based schools, the instructors will have to work within a strict syllabus, meaning they work on what they have to rather than what most suits the student;

  • Exams can be stressful for the student, and some dance schools push their students to ever more exams rather than focusing on their student’s quality of dance

Social

As the name suggests, social dance schools have their primary focus on social dancing.  At Dance Devotion we are big advocates of the social dance school, and believe it is the best fit for the majority of dancers.

Pros of a social school

  • Everyone is there to have fun - this makes it relaxed;

  • It is a great way to meet new like-minded people;

  • Social dancers from a good school tend to become very good at navigation and flexibility  enabling them to dance anywhere;

  • As the instructors are not tied to a set syllabus they can use whatever figures best suit the student.

Cons of a social school

  • Social dancers generally don’t look as polished as those from a competition or exam school as the focus of their teaching is flexibility, navigation and fun rather than styling or technical accuracy;

  • There is a wide variety in the quality of tuition in social dance schools, some instructors are absolutely excellent, others not.

Children

This category is really a subset of a competition or exam school. Many dance schools earn much of their living from teaching children’s classes. If you are looking for dance lessons for your child, then a school with a focus on children’s classes would probably be a good fit. For adult classes however, you may be better served at a school which focuses mostly on adults. At Dance Devotion we made the decision not to teach children, and instead, specialise in adults only.

Qualifications

Every reputable dance school should have instructors who are professionally trained and qualified.  This does not automatically mean that they are any good at teaching, but it shows that their knowledge has been professionally checked.  The two awarding bodies for this are the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance (ISTD) and the International Dance Teachers Association (IDTA).  Whilst there are differences between these two bodies, a teaching qualification from either body is perfectly acceptable.  At Dance Devotion, all our instructors are ISTD qualified.

Experience

Unsurprisingly, an instructor who has ten years of teaching experience is likely to have more practice in how to approach teaching, how to explain concepts in different ways, and how to best help different students than one who is newly qualified.  Many instructors are also part-time, being unable or unwilling to earn enough money from teaching alone.  As such, ten years of teaching two classes a week is very different from ten years of teaching 40 hours each week.  This doesn’t mean you should discount the newer schools or the part-time instructors, you should just include this in your considerations.

Personality

In our view, this is one of the most important considerations, especially for a social dance school.  However good and well-qualified an instructor is, if you don’t get on with them they are unlikely to be the best instructor for you.

Reputation

Be careful with how you judge this one.  Most dancers would say that their instructor is great, but unless they have sampled several different instructors, how do they know?  If you know lots of dancers, and they all say a particular school is to be avoided then they might have point, but take any advice with a pinch of salt.

Price

Whilst we would like to think that price is secondary to other considerations when selecting an instructor, we mustn’t forget that it is an important factor to consider.  Usually, we would suggest that the very cheap should be treated with care, as there is often a reason for their pricing point.  Be wary that some instructors become a bit full of themselves and charge exorbitantly high prices, claiming that they are “the best”.  This is rarely the case.

Location

Does the dance school teach solely from its own premises or does it use a variety of venues that are more local to you?  We at Dance Devotion believe that it is always worth travelling a little further to find the best tuition, but on a cold and icy day, even we acknowledge that there is a limit to how far a student will travel for a dance class.

Public appearance

By this, we mean what are your initial impressions when you look up the details of the school?  They don’t need to have a flash website, but if they can’t communicate their basic details to you, it must surely cause concern over how well they can communicate the dance.  A professional website is to be desired, and we are not fans of solely using a Facebook page, as this doesn’t convey as professional an appearance.  

Conclusion - which school to choose?

Obviously, if you are in the Norwich area we would love to say that Dance Devotion is the school you should choose.  But putting that bias aside, take your time in searching for the best school for you, and don’t be afraid to try a few different instructors before making a decision. 

Roger Gibbons