Do you give your students a formal evaluation form and if so how often and what items do you include? If anyone would like to email me a copy that would be wonderful too? Warddlw@aol.com. I think it written out for the student and paretns to see would be helpful, just wondering how often since it will require a lot of work from me and all their teachers. Thanks for any input.

I did in the past, only before Christmas break. And I stopped because it became too much work for me.
Now I sit down with the students and do an oral evaluation.

I don't have one but I did a google search and a lot popped up. You might find some that would work for you.

We don't but we're considering adding one. Mainly so there would be a paper trail of why the best dancer doesn't get moved up to a higher level (when Mom is the only one who thinks the child is the best, far superior dancer).

Just like ordinals for ice skating, for example. You must be proficient in A,B,C,and D in order to progress to Level II, etc.
Minimum requirements, proficiency, and potential (which is subjective to the Artistic Director).

We attempted them one year, but it was way too much work! I think we tried to do too much with them, evaluated on too many steps. I think if you had a few things for each level it would work. Things like how many pirouettes they can do, a few specific jumps for each level, length of time they can balance or one foot. Those are easy to evaluate and the parents can't argue with you on it. Other requirements like musicality, and correct body placement are hard for parents with no dance training to see and understand. You can also evaluate on spelling! That will get some of those kids who REALLY don't need to move up because they are not as serious. The serious dancers will learn to spell 5-10 words!

We do one in May for all students.

Thanks for you help. I will try and google it and see what I can find. I just thought seeing it on paper might have more of an impact that the verbal we have been doing and a better way to keep track of them. We have a lot of issues with attendance and I was thinking this way the parents can see right on the form how many absences their child has had and will help them to understand why their child is not progressing like they think they should be. Again, thaks for all your help.

This is what I used to have on mine.

Rhythm

Coordination

Flexibility

Arms/hands

Feet/legs

Memory

Effort

Behavior/Attitude

Attendance


I had one of three things to circle

Needs Improvement

Good

Excellent

and a space for comments below each section.


I made sure it said that this was not a pass or fail, just to let them know how they are doing. On the bottom it had a space for the class(es) recommended for the next season. I always made sure, if they were not already in ballet, that we recommended a ballet class. That helped up our ballet enrollment.

I'm curious - those of you who hand out evaluations at year-end, if you circled "needs improvement", did any of the parents give you flack about not fixing it or bringing it to their attention sooner, before the end of the year?

I'm thinking maybe a mid-year evaluation would give the children a chance to improve. But then I might have to do a year-end one as well... too much paper, not enough dance!

Thoughts?

tappin_cait wrote:

I'm curious - those of you who hand out evaluations at year-end, if you circled "needs improvement", did any of the parents give you flack about not fixing it or bringing it to their attention sooner, before the end of the year?

I'm thinking maybe a mid-year evaluation would give the children a chance to improve. But then I might have to do a year-end one as well... too much paper, not enough dance!

Thoughts?

I have wondered about that too. We were thinking one at Christmas break and one at year-end.