What actually happens in a three year old's first dance class

Parents booking a first dance class usually want to know one thing, and it is almost never the thing they ask. They ask what the class covers. What they want to know is whether their three year old is going to cry, cling to their leg, and make everyone look.

So here is the honest version of a first class at Studio 8, the stage we call Discover, which runs for ages three to five.

The first eleven minutes are usually nothing

A lot of three year olds spend the opening stretch of their first class standing near the wall watching everyone else. Some hold onto the barre with both hands and do not let go. Some sit down in the middle of the floor. None of this is a problem and none of it predicts anything about whether your child will dance.

Teachers who work with this age expect it. The class is built so that a child who is only watching is still getting something out of it, because at three, watching is participating. The children who dive straight in are not ahead. They are just louder.

What matters is the second class, not the first. A child who watched the whole of week one and then walked in without looking back in week two has done exactly what the class is designed to produce.

What they wear, and what they do not need

Anything they can move in. That is the whole rule for a trial class. No jeans, nothing stiff, nothing oversized that they will trip on or get lost inside.

You do not need to buy dance shoes before a first class. Plenty of three year olds do their trial in socks or bare feet, and buying a pair of ballet shoes before you know whether your child wants to come back is a decision you can make later. Bring a water bottle.

• Clothes that move, not jeans or stiff shorts
• Hair off the face if it is long enough to get in the way
• A water bottle with their name on it
• Shoes only if you already own them

Do you stay in the room?

Ask, because studios differ and it depends on the child. Some children settle faster with a parent visible. Others perform for the parent and stop listening to the teacher, which is its own problem.

At a small studio you can have this conversation with the person actually teaching the class rather than with a front desk that will pass the message on. That is worth more at this age than any facility.

What a class this age actually teaches

Not choreography. A three year old is not learning a routine, and if a studio shows you a polished routine from a class of three year olds in week three, something is being optimised that is not your child.

What they are learning is a set of things that are genuinely hard at three and genuinely useful afterwards. Standing in a spot and staying in it. Waiting for a turn. Copying a shape with their own body. Hearing a count and moving on it. Following an instruction from an adult who is not a parent.

Studio 8 describes what it is for as skills children can use outside the classroom, and this is where that starts. A child who can take a correction from a teacher at four is easier to teach at any subject at eight.

Ballet, tap or something else?

At three, this matters far less than people expect, which is why the studio runs Tiny Stars for ages three to six. It samples ballet, tap and acro in one class so a small child meets three disciplines without having to commit to any of them, and without a parent having to guess which one their child will like.

Tiny Stars runs Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It is the honest answer to a question most parents cannot answer in advance, and it means the choice gets made from evidence rather than from whichever class had a space.

What counts as a good first class

Not that they danced. Not that they were the best in the room. Not that they learned anything you could describe on the drive home.

A good first class is one your child is willing to repeat. That is the entire bar, and it is the reason the trial class at Studio 8 costs nothing. You do not have to decide anything in advance, and neither does your child. Come once, see what happens, and then decide.

If you want to talk it through first, the office is open Monday to Thursday from 4:30 to 8:30 PM and Friday from 5:00 to 7:00. Tell us your child's name and age and we will tell you which class they would walk into.