There are hundreds and hundreds of drama schools all over the UK. Some are good and some bad! The way to approach this is to do your homework.

The first question you should always ask yourself is – who is teaching your child? This is so important. A good drama teacher will instil confidence, technique and discipline, and if their CV doesn’t come up to scratch then you need to be looking elsewhere. The reason I say this is that over the years, many parents have set up their own schools, probably in the belief that it looks easy, and have little or no experience. This is disastrous! However good they may be on an amateur level, and there are some good amateur actors around, this does not always equate to being a good teacher. They must have either trained at drama college or worked professionally in the industry as far as I am concerned so they can pass on their knowledge and skills. A professional actor will know the pitfalls, the etiquette of theatre and TV and the hard slog it takes to train. A parent won’t!

Check out what they have done, this is usually on their website so is pretty easy to find. All teachers like to brag about their accomplishments, it’s in our blood, so read it and if you’re happy then you can take the next step and make the call.

Don’t ever be swung by location either. It doesn’t matter if the school is being run in a village hall, private premises or a stately home. It’s all down to the teaching your child will receive, so don’t be a snob about it! I ran my school for four years in a village hall and it was perfect. That’s where all my growth happened and I loved being part of the community and contributing to the upkeep of a historic building. The only reason I moved was that such venues generally have only a 100-person capacity and as I was tipping over the edge with all my tutors and volunteers, I didn’t want to break the law! Moving to the prestigious Gateways School in Harewood, Leeds, was all to do with their facilities and most of all that their bespoke theatre was built in the round!

So, call the principal of the school and have a good chat. Explain your reasons for wanting your child to go there. Is it merely for fun? Or are they just bursting with talent and want to pursue acting as a career? This conversation is crucial in your decision. Does it sound like just another business call to them or do they seem genuinely interested in your child? Their needs, their personal goals and potential friendships should be listened to and once a good relationship is established with the principal, you can be rest assured that they will do their best for you as the client but more importantly for the well-being of your child.

I love finding out about new children and I have been fortunate enough to have been given a great memory for storing lots of bits of useless information. I often recall stories they have told me in lessons that even they have forgotten. It’s quite funny when that happens and once the penny has dropped, they can’t believe it! This is what the parents don’t see. A confident, healthy relationship with a mentor who is totally on their level.

All good schools should offer you the opportunity to come along for a free taster so that your child can see whether they like it or not. Drama isn’t for everyone and sometimes there are very clear ideas in a child’s mind that drama is going to be one thing and then it turns out to be totally the opposite. They might hate it! They may also just need a year or two before they try it again but I would always say that they should guide you on this. Don’t ever force a child to sign up to something that they are not going to bounce through the door to do! A teacher should never ask your child what they thought of the class in front of you either. It’s too much pressure and for me it’s on the border line of aggressive selling. It’s like they’re trying to close the deal before you leave the building! Take your child home, sit down with them and ask them what they thought. Do they want to go back? Most children won’t shut up as soon as they leave and will be begging their mums or dads to let them go every week, but every child is different and some are more reflective in their decisions. 

The fees at drama schools can vary hugely depending where you are in the country and what they have to offer! My classes were run on an hourly basis so if you want to study just acting, you can. If you want to sing, dance and act then you could just stay for an extra hour and do the next class. Gosh, it must be horrendous if your training means you HAVE to stay on and do all three! Good schools will offer mixes of the two so do ask! We have developed a new pick and mix kind of system, so albeit the lessons will now be over three hours, with drama being a core base, students can now decide whether they concentrate on street dance, contemporary, screen technique or musical theatre. Personally I think this makes sound business sense for both teacher and parent. You and your child can control and focus on bespoke training and the teacher doesn’t lose a child altogether because of being forced to attend a class that doesn’t suit them. 

We are also one of the lowest fee paying drama schools in the North. In 11 years of trading this year is the first time we are raising our fees from the time I started. I have three children so balancing all the extra curricular activities as well as drama, Lamda lessons and fitness is a costly drain. Even when my rents increased massively, I stayed the same and decided to expand my school in other ways so the parents didn’t feel the pinch. Usually fees work on a termly basis and this can vary between three and four terms a year. This is about right. I moved to a monthly direct debit to spread the cost over a year. Most drama schools cost approximately between £900-£1200 a year per one student. Ask the principal how much it’s going to cost you right from the start and enquire as to how you can pay for this. Some of my parents like to pay for the whole year upfront. Find out about uniform costs too and any other extras that you might have to consider. There should NEVER be an administration fee for joining a school so if they mention that, kindly make your exit and look elsewhere.

What I would say though is, make sure you pay your fees as soon as you get them as principals hate chasing money down and, to be frank, it’s very rude to keep sending your child to class when you haven’t even paid for that term. I know several principals who refuse entry of that child into their class until the parent has paid which can be embarrassing. But I don’t scold them for this as rents and tutors etc have to be paid and at the end of the day you couldn’t walk into a department store and say “I’ll have that product but I’ll pay you when I feel like it!” Do you get what I mean? It’s just manners in essence and a bit of a moral issue.

Each class should hold around 20- 25 children so ask about class sizes. It’s great to have larger classes as the atmosphere is great and a healthy, encouraging ambience makes it all the more fun. However, too large and it just gets down to quality of service. Judge it for yourself and find out what your child thinks ultimately. Check out also what other services the school offers; for example, private dance and singing lessons or LAMDA tuition! We have five LAMDA tutors and its great to offer those more serious students a chance to take official exams. Both my older children signed up and although my youngest could have too, she’s not showing signs of being that way inclined so we’ve left her. 

LAMDA teaches the children about monologues, verse and prose and, incredibly, language! Not to mention strong techniques in breathing and posture. My son developed more in English at school for having studied LAMDA than anything else. The classes should be private, around 30 minutes each, and be taught every week. I would encourage LAMDA lessons on weekly basis for consistency. All the children who study LAMDA seem to absolutely love it and with the right teacher they can earn great marks that will eventually build up to getting a great qualification through acquiring UCAS points. 

Singing is also high on my agenda of talents as it is often required for working in theatre. Do it if you love it! If you don’t, don’t! Simple. Voice technique is imperative so that you don’t fall into bad habits and a good singing teacher is hard to find. So again, check out what they have done. A mixture of pop, musical theatre and classical give a rounded teaching and builds up a repertoire of songs that can be pulled out of the bag wherever your child is. The more eclectic your music tastes are, the more your children will pick up. My mum was crazy on musicals and Barbara Streisand so we were brought up listening to that specific sound. Children copy artists and by my sisters and me tuning into singing techniques, we adopted a great range. By the age of nine, I knew pretty much every musical out there and used to tape record (yes I know, it was VHS then!) all the films so I could copy the dances too.I still wish that Sunday afternoons showed one dedicated musical on TV so that families could just relax and enjoy some good old-fashioned entertainment. Idealistic I know, but I feel they have missed out somehow on the great artists!

In the dance classes we offer, I like the children to have as much fun as possible but these classes are more about variety of style and technique combined with singing. That’s why it’s called Musical Theatre. Don’t get me wrong, they will learn how to dance but not to Rudolf Nureyev standard! If your child wants to dance as a career in ballet for instance then I strongly urge you to find an accredited ballet school and train there and keep the acting separate.

Every class should have a clear lesson plan by whoever is teaching it. This usually comprises warm up games, a technique and then a task to put that technique into practice. If all you’re experiencing is your child playing games, then stop and hunt around for a more disciplined teaching. Children love playing games but if there’s no back technique to it what’s the point. I had a wonderfully talented young actor who used to travel all the way from Nottingham every week to my class because the school he was at just played games! He was so much better than that and regularly worked on TV. He was bored! Although he is now at University, he was eager to know what we were doing next. 

I often act opposite my students to challenge their techniques and see if they’ve remembered what we’ve taught them. You hear teachers go on about improvisation all the time but it’s absolutely crucial in learning. To think on your feet and make split second decisions wakes up the brain and keeps you active. It’s also really hard to do. Every term I dedicate a whole lesson to improvisation only and the children go wild when I mention it. Good job, because most auditions now are steered that way so it’s imperative that we practice, practice, practice.

After teaching on a Saturday, I am totally exhausted and when I finally get home, I eat (as I don’t usually throughout the day), flop down and watch a movie, rarely getting up for anything! This is because I exert all my energy into my lessons. Some teachers can be quite lazy and just set out little tasks and let the children get on with it. Of course, you have to allow young actors to plan pieces in small groups, but there should be time spent working with them too and acting opposite them!!! 

I live my life working in a circle and getting the children to come into the middle individually to work with me. Working with their peers and tutor challenges their confidence and intelligence and a mixture of nerves and excitement gives them a sense of accomplishment when they’ve finished. Time management in class is probably one of my biggest vices as once I have your precious ones in my midst, I just want to keep them and work. My trusty volunteers are the ones usually peeping their heads in tapping their watches to chase me up!

When term ends, I feel quite low as I know how much they’ve developed and I’m scared that their confidence can take a bit of a nosedive when it comes to long breaks. It takes a good few weeks to get them back into the swing of things, especially after a summer break. Most schools will run workshops in the holidays and I urge all parents to let them do these if you’ve not flown away to some amazing country or climate! These workshops can run from either a day one to a whole week and some even are residential. My business partner (Jen) and I run these together with other tutors and we never run the same workshop, ever! It’s mostly theme based and can run from puppetry theatre to script and television technique. We even do a circuit’s workshop, which involves all three techniques of acting singing and dance, meaning they rotate their skills. One year we ran a Murder Mystery theme and the children absolutely loved it. We even pretended that something had actually happened and staged a phone call in front of the students who were fascinated. I like keeping the workshops short and sweet so there is no overkill on the energy of everyone attending. After all, it’s their holidays so these should just be all out fun!

Shows are my biggest headache generally all round! They are supposed to be the most fun experience of all but I actually find them to be the biggest killer to my school. All because of a lack of commitment. I wouldn’t mind so much if we charged for rehearsals (some schools actually do this!), charged for costumes (most schools do this too) or took up every Sunday of your child’s life (pretty much bank on most schools doing this!) but we don’t! I have tried every method to make sure that before I embark on a show I have given the parent and child every opportunity to decide whether they want to do it or not! I used to make it compulsory but I have learnt the hard way not to. We now audition children who want to be in the show and yet still they pull out at varying stages of the process and sometimes as close as three weeks before! It’s a total nightmare and bad play in my books. If you agree for your child to do a show, with their total passion, then see it through. Teach your child about commitment and word of honour. I have heard every excuse in the book, trust me. Struggling to learn lines, too much homework, he or she’s not in it much; we’re away that weekend or family is visiting, blah, blah, blah! Don’t audition then!!!! Nobody makes you do it, so don’t commit! 

Owing to this I sometimes get parents who feel disappointed by the fact that their child didn’t get a bigger part and they have counted the amount of lines against another child. This makes me fuming! Have they actually heard themselves? I’ve probably given their child so many opportunities in other aspects but for SOME, this still isn’t good enough. Truthfully, I couldn’t care less either way! There are A list Hollywood actors who actively accept small roles for the fact that they would rather make an impact for that small character than necessarily be running all the way through the film. I mean, seriously, get a grip! Ringing up the principal of a school to complain about this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. It’s about being part of the production, not how big you are in it!!! On the flip side, we then get an overwhelming response from my angel parents who can’t do enough to help. They sew, cook, volunteer, draft in favours and all kinds of wonderfully delicious things to get the show to be its best so we are constantly working from the sublime to the ridiculous. We can never thank them enough and it’s the only thing that totally restores my faith in why I start the hassle of doing shows at all. After all, it’s a performing arts school. We are going to put shows on every now and then! We do a showcase at the end of every term and perform a huge show every Christmas as we also concentrate on plays too. It’s such a huge commitment for all. So if you’re at a drama school and a performance is in the pipeline, please spare a thought for all involved and make a decision from the start that you are either going to do it or not. When you’ve made that decision, stick to it! 

Awards

This brings me nicely on to another incredibly upsetting pursuit that gets worse over time! Acknowledgement of talent. I have tried several times, unsuccessfully, to praise and reward my students by handing out trophies for talent. And I’m talking stand out talent or confidence! The children are amazing and they cheer, clap and dance about reputedly in glee for their fellow peers and yet after the event, the phone rings. “My child attends every week so why didn’t she get that award?”, “I didn’t think that other child deserved it!”, “I know my child’s the best so why were they overlooked”. 

Those phone calls have actually happened and I have to stop myself picking up the phone and throwing it across the room. I have never heard anything so utterly selfish in my life! Why are you ringing the teacher and questioning their decision at all? Are you in class every week? Have you seen all the work the rewarded child has done? No! For me, it can be as simple as that child has made a huge step in something that I know they couldn’t have done before attending my class. Nothing to do with anyone else. Tough. Get over it. Some parents leave. Let me tell you, I will never be bullied into decisions because someone’s unhappy about something. I also will not reward your child if you are my best friend in the world. I am fair and I stand by what I see. Simple.