Simple steps to preschool dance class success – Part 1: age levels
🙈 It's hard to find preschool dance teachers.
🙉 Teachers just come and go, they don’t stay for long.
🙊 They all want to teach the teenagers, not the younger students.
If you’re a dance studio owner you've heard these things before… you’ve probably thought or said them too.
Here's a hot take: the decisions you make as a studio owner directly impact hiring, training, and retaining your staff. And they also impact the experience, progress, and retention of your students.
The decisions you make as a dance studio owner matter.
I've worked with a lot of dance studios and have trained a lot of dance teachers over the years.
Every dance studio is different.
But these are some of the decisions that I see being made time and time again by dance studio owners all over the world.
Decisions that are made in the moment but actually hinder the long term growth, ease, and success of their preschool dance programs.
Decisions that seem to ‘fix’ little problems now, but are actually impacting your profitability and creating fires that will need to be put out later.
The most common mistakes I see in preschool dance classes
The age range in a single dance class is too broad.
Class duration is too long.
Packing way too many dancers into a single class.
Classes scheduled at inappropriate times.
No training on how to teach young children.
No assistant teachers, or no adult team member's on site to support.
No curriculum, program, or plans to follow.
Poorly resourced or ill-equipped for younger dancers.
Mistaking edutainment as education.
In this series, I’ll unpack one of these preschool dance program downfalls to show you the impact of the decision and give you some alternative and more sustainable approaches that will pay off in the long run.
Common preschool dance class mistake #1 : The age range in a single dance class is too broad
The other day I saw a Facebook ad promoting a ballet class for 4 to 8 year olds...
Four to eight!… In a single class!?!?
RIP teacher 🪦
Some of you might be shocked too, but it’s pretty common to see ages 3 through 6 grouped together in a single class.
Why is this an issue?
The needs of a 3 year old dancer and a 6 year old dancer are completely different.
Honestly, even the the needs of a 3 and 4 year old dancer are completely different.
And, though it can be difficult to build class enrolments from scratch, you're not doing yourself any favours when you schedule these “Frankenstein” classes 🧟♂️
The younger dancers get stressed or overwhelmed because the content is too tricky and over their heads and isn't being delivered in a way that meets their learning needs.
The older kids aren't being challenged and progressed appropriately so they get bored and act out.
Even if you try to mix-and-match the ‘target audience’ for different exercises, you’re left with an inconsistent class where progression is difficult or patchy at best.
And worst of all, the teacher is left sweating it out and trying to hold it all together.
🙅🏽♀️ Kids drop out cos they aren't having a good time or aren't progressing.
🫸🏽 Teachers quit because no amount of pay is worth that pain.
A more sustainable approach to age levels in preschool dance classes
At Leap 'N Learn we recommend a single age level for students from ages 3 through 6; so a class of 3 year olds, a class of 4 year olds, etc.
But we also know that it’s not always possible to start. There are all sorts of factors:
studio availability
timetabling
teacher availability
enrolments
overheads
So what can you do?
Well, before you go full-blown Frankenstein on your schedule, there’s a few ways you can narrow the age range of your class to group students whose developmental status is more similar, for example:
a separate class for 3's, then a class for 4-5 yr olds
a class for 3-4 yr olds and a class for 5-6 yr olds
Once you build up enrolments in these for a year, the next year you can split up the class into two levels, creating space for students to move up a level, and opening more spaces to welcome new students.
And it’s going to be way easier to build up these enrolments becuase it’s going to be a way smoother running class. Because when the content, methods, and expectations are developmentally appropriate, students and teachers feel the benefits 🫶🏽
💛 Less struggle. Less frustration.
💛 Easier learning. More progress.
💛 More ease, more joy, and more successful outcomes for all.
Within 2-3 years you'll have a level-appropriate class ecosystem that will pay off for years to come.
Don’t drink the “scale your studio” Kool-Aid… when it comes to quality education, sustainable growth is slow and steady. 🐢