Elephant in the room

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islandofsodor
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by islandofsodor »

Thinking of my own daughter now hypothetically:

If she were to be offered a choice between the diploma courses at Bird, Laine or Hammond she would go Hammond first choice, Bird 2nd choice

If she had to choose between the degree at Arts Ed or the degree at Hammond she would go for Arts Ed.

If it was a choice between the degree courses at Hammond, Chichester or Wolverhampton she would choose Hammond.

If she were only offered Wolverhampton I would ask her to consider either a year out or re-evaluating her chances of making it in the industry.

Everyone is looking for different things. But ultimately when you are paying yearly tuition of £6,000 you cannot expect the same contact hours to be provided than if you are paying £9,000 (some degrees) or £18,000 per year (diploma).
pg
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by pg »

I would recommend that, if in doubt about Spotlight eligibility for a particular course, you contact Spotlight directly and ask them .


Spotlight entry is very important for actors, without a doubt. I don't know enough about how dancers and singers get jobs to comment on whether Spotlight is a high priority for them.

If you want a career as an actor then Spotlight entry is likely to be essential for the vast majority of actors at the start of their careers.
2dancersmum
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by 2dancersmum »

yes 30 graduates is the total number from 2 courses and not class size. They are not taught altogether.

secondly, I think PG's advice is spot on. If in any doubt, contact Spotlight. It is also important for singers and dancers - certainly for those wanting theatre, west end or otherwise, touring musicals, TV work etc, less so perhaps if they are wanting cruise ships, holiday resorts. Most performers have portfolio careers though and would not be wanting to limit themselves to only one 'type' of opportunity.

Perhaps a point to reflect on: perhaps this focus on hours on a course in spotlights criteria is actually to give new colleges that are offering a different approach to the 3 year diplomas a chance to develop. It would be easy to dismiss a 2 year course as less value than a 3 year course - its a whole year less training right? Except that a condensed course with extended weekly hours could well be offering more practical training than a 3 year university course with a 50/50 practical/theory split so it is only right that spotlight entry criteria reflect this. Also right to point out that this is a 'selling point' for new colleges, wanting the best students but also offering a different model and less funding than more established colleges. Not criticising here - all colleges have their own 'selling points' for attracting students.
paulears
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by paulears »

Islandofsodor has a solid opinion on this. It does seem that one type of education is now being questioned because of contact hours rather than overall quality. If you wish to offer training you can simply offer it and charge whatever it costs. You can set your own hours, and if you believe it important make the students do whatever you think is best for them, and you. If you wish to do a university degree, then historically, contact hours in the general sense are minimal - Cambridge for example tend to have their lectures shared, but then the students discuss the content with their supervisors back at their own university - sharing common input. At others, the lecturer is one of your own faculty - so contact hours vary greatly, and frankly, based on results, does contact hours matter? The students are in a place where they have access to everything, and do so much on their own. This - from the Equity/Spotlight perspective just doesn't work - but is because non-vocational qualification are being used to bolster up the finances and attractiveness of a practical non-vocational course. For most of the non-academic institutions turning out performers, they could be doing HNDs - which would probably suffice - and could be topped up later in the persons career - perhaps by the OU or distance learning.

The solution of course is that they will cheat - like colleges are doing at the moment. Timetable 8 hours of research in the library, where they need to sign in which [img]proves[/img] they were in college with a member of staff present. Unofficially, they don't go - and people sign in missing people. It's a fudge and probably illegal, but the colleges do not wish to investigate, and neither do the students. They get no grades from this timetabled activity so don't lose out. If the specialist colleges find their students are suffering - then they will up contact time by some fudge, and I suspect many are already doing it. Allocate a member of staff to do practical rehearsals and workshops that don't really exist, or are perhaps glorified exercise classes.

I would be very surprised if any college turning out quality students cannot generate evidence contact time has been increased. This is not new. Course hours in my own history have always been er, flexible. BTEC back in the 90s specified 720 GLH (guided learning hours???) for a Level 3 qualification. This was at that time 16-18 hours of timetabled classed and a few did an A Level on top for an extra 5 Hours a week, so some doing 23. Then an hours tutorial was included, cutting proper class time, then self-study, then some doubled up classes - doing two units at the same time - detailed as two separate classes, but happening at the same time. Then BTEC themselves started to reduce hours when they hit on schools doing Level 2, needing to compress everything to fit the school week - the colleges immediately matched them reducing the hours they delivered.

It's a game, and all revolving around funding units - so in essence money matters. HE was seen as an extra pot of untapped money - hence why it suddenly expanded. Now it's contracting again and is at odds with Equity and Spotlight who are NOT educationalists, they're interested in jobs - and we all know education has NOTHING to do with jobs anymore!
jennifer1972
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by jennifer1972 »

I think that possibly these knew Spotlight guidelines are just in place to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. MT courses are popping up left, right and centre, particularly in the universities but what exactly are they offering? We all know that the better known institutions are incredibly hard to get into and this is because they know their stuff and aim to produce employable triple threat performers, rather than simply graduates in MT.
pg
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by pg »

"Contact hours" at drama schools were not fudged in any way on accredited courses.

Students were in classes, being given direct, practical (mostly on your feet) lessons from around 9.30am to around 5.30pm - usually five days a week. Exact times would vary. During rehearsals for shows there might be additional evening and weekend rehearsal.

I think this will need some bedding in - but the attempt is to find a replacement for Drama UK accreditation so that students have a clue whether they'll get practical rather than academic training.

While it's being thrashed out, check with Spotlight would be my advice.
theMTAonline
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by theMTAonline »

Hi guys
I think that this area is a grey area within the training sector. The newly formed Federation of Drama Schools in theory (according to their website) bizarrely doesn't meet the new criteria. I've done a couple of vlogs on the topics which might help you? https://youtu.be/J-y7at7PBKc all about the criteria and https://youtu.be/S38MomrmxzI all about the Federation. The conflicting guidelines between the two is rather disappointing.
Please be aware that in theory no college is now accredited (that was a format devised by the NCDT and then picked up by Drama UK . . .neither of which now exist).
I would completely endorse what pg said . . . contact Spotlight to find out if they are. . . and intend to continue, accepting applications from various colleges. The bottom line though is that if Spotlight aren't accepting a course then your child is going to find it so difficult to get work and maybe even an agent. For those of you not aware this is the Spotlight link https://www.spotlight.com/
With the absence of a closed shop, I guess that this is the only way to ensure that good training is being supported from the industry's perspective? Hopefully this 'tough love' approach will make colleges think twice before running a course purely for profit.

When doing the circuit keep to some basic questions:

1) Exactly what are the contact hours/week and the weeks/year (ask to see a timetable as these numbers are being fudged in some places)
2) How many students/year and how many students/class (remember in the showcase, your child will be competing with the year. . . not just the streamed class) You could even ask to be put in contact with past or current students. We recently had a mum come to meet me who asked to speak to around 5 graduates . . . all from different years, to ensure that our quality had been maintained for a sustained period of time.
3) Find out how many students were signed the year before, and also how many had secured work. Also attempt to get access to stats beyond last year too . . . the majority of performers drop out within 5 years! Mountview and Royal Welsh are the only mainstream college besides us I believe, to clearly show how their entire graduate year have done.
4) Check on their pastoral care policy (Mountview, CSSD, Arts Ed, PPA, Rose Bruford, Fourth Monkey have all signed up to our #time4change Mental Health Charter)
5) Find out who their faculty is - you might have a preference on whether your child is taught by teachers or by performers, so check it out.
6) Are their graduates eligible for Spotlight registration
7) Are the fees inclusive of VAT. . . and are there any hidden extras.

I hope that these help. Please don't be afraid to ask, and push for these answers. You are being asked to spend a huge amount of money. Were you making a purchase of that much you would research the item (give it a test run :idea: ), get testimonials from other people that have already paid a large sum of money to ensure that they really were happy.
paulears
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by paulears »

A quick side question - I didn't know that educational courses attracted VAT - I'd always assumed they were exempt? If VAT is charged then business sponsorship would enable these to be recovered if supporting a student.

Contact hours have always been fudged. If the tutor or lecturer is ill or not available - is cover provided or does it turn into self-study? That doesn't appear in the official hours as a deduction, and it's rarely put back by extra later on.
theMTAonline
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by theMTAonline »

paulears wrote:A quick side question - I didn't know that educational courses attracted VAT - I'd always assumed they were exempt? If VAT is charged then business sponsorship would enable these to be recovered if supporting a student.

Contact hours have always been fudged. If the tutor or lecturer is ill or not available - is cover provided or does it turn into self-study? That doesn't appear in the official hours as a deduction, and it's rarely put back by extra later on.
Hi 'Paulears'
The VAT exemption on colleges only exists if you're in receipt of a government funding stream. Trust me - we went to so many VAT experts about this matter and had so many (dull) conversations with HMRC.
The 'fudging' of contact hours is actually more about the idea of private study and what that means in reality. If you're paying for your child to be taught, then that is exactly what should be happening, not self directed study/research time. There's plenty of time for that in an evening. I would hope that a good college would make adequate provision for other teachers to be on site or cover sourced should someone suddenly not be able to make a class. The absence of a teacher shouldn't automatically become private study time. My faculty is predominantly freelancers but we have never given students free study areas - so it's not difficult
lbm1e14
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by lbm1e14 »

paulears wrote:A quick side question - I didn't know that educational courses attracted VAT - I'd always assumed they were exempt? If VAT is charged then business sponsorship would enable these to be recovered if supporting a student.

Contact hours have always been fudged. If the tutor or lecturer is ill or not available - is cover provided or does it turn into self-study? That doesn't appear in the official hours as a deduction, and it's rarely put back by extra later on.
The only college I've seen quote ex-VAT is Laine although I'm sure there are others. I suppose it does show how much they get and how much the Government get although they do leave you to "do the math" by not printIng what you actually pay. For 16/17 (17/18 fees don't appear to be on the website) they quote £14,450 ex-VAT. If you do the math it's £17,340 with VAT. I don't imagine any students are VAT registered to will pay the VAT inclusive price.
theMTAonline
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by theMTAonline »

lbm1e14 wrote:
paulears wrote:A quick side question - I didn't know that educational courses attracted VAT - I'd always assumed they were exempt? If VAT is charged then business sponsorship would enable these to be recovered if supporting a student.

Contact hours have always been fudged. If the tutor or lecturer is ill or not available - is cover provided or does it turn into self-study? That doesn't appear in the official hours as a deduction, and it's rarely put back by extra later on.
The only college I've seen quote ex-VAT is Laine although I'm sure there are others. I suppose it does show how much they get and how much the Government get although they do leave you to "do the math" by not printIng what you actually pay. For 16/17 (17/18 fees don't appear to be on the website) they quote £14,450 ex-VAT. If you do the math it's £17,340 with VAT. I don't imagine any students are VAT registered to will pay the VAT inclusive price.
Unhelpfully I've forgotten which ones but there are a few others that suddenly throw VAT in too. It's just worth the ask when you're on the questioning stage I think (just in case)
islandofsodor
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by islandofsodor »

HMRC is very strict in what VAT can be recovered by a business. I very much doubt sponsorship of a student would be recoverable. There would need to be clear advertising of the business. It's the same with hospitality.

Sorry for sidetracking.
pg
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by pg »

I have never been aware of self study time at either OSD or RADA - not through absence of tutors in any case. I don't know about other schools. Tutor absence has been covered.

Contact hours *definitely* aren't fudged at these two schools. Students are on site, in a "classroom" (or the theatre) pretty well all day every day.

I suspect the same is true for most of the courses that used to be "accredited".

There have been times scheduled where students have worked without direct supervision (during rehearsals for example).

The same was NOT true of the Opera course at RWCMD. Contact hours there were lamentably few - but that wasn't an "accredited" practical performance course.
theMTAonline
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by theMTAonline »

pg wrote:I have never been aware of self study time at either OSD or RADA - not through absence of tutors in any case. I don't know about other schools. Tutor absence has been covered.

Contact hours *definitely* aren't fudged at these two schools. Students are on site, in a "classroom" (or the theatre) pretty well all day every day.

I suspect the same is true for most of the courses that used to be "accredited".

There have been times scheduled where students have worked without direct supervision (during rehearsals for example).

The same was NOT true of the Opera course at RWCMD. Contact hours there were lamentably few - but that wasn't an "accredited" practical performance course.
It was definitely 'fudged' in some accredited colleges. Of course this is an obsolete conversation now as nobody is regulating the industry - sadly. Hi Helen by the way - it's Annemarie x
kzgirl
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Re: Elephant in the room

Post by kzgirl »

DD is starting the triple threat degree at Chichester in September 2017, for everyone that was worried about contact hours at Uni DD has just found out her course has over 30 hours contact time a week. :lol:
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