Where the technique begins.
For children from 7 to 10. One or two hours a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. No audition: at this level everyone starts at the barre.
The programme
Elementary is where ballet stops being a game that teaches and becomes a technique that is learned. The class moves to the barre, the vocabulary becomes French, and every exercise has a name, an order and a correction. The aim is the one this school has always stated: a healthy and musical dancer.
Placement first: where the weight sits over the feet, how the back holds itself, how the leg turns out from the hip and not from the knee. Then the vocabulary — plié, tendu, dégagé, rond de jambe — and the port de bras that carries the arms through all of it.
By repetition and by correction. The same exercise comes back every week, a little longer and a little harder. The correction is not a reproach: it is the content of the class. And at this age a child can hold a long sequence in their head, so the sequences grow through the year.
To Professional Training from ten: classwork, repertoire and, from twelve, the first pointe shoes. What Elementary has to hand over is correct alignment, a wider vocabulary, and combinations a dancer can remember.
One hour
The order never changes, and it is the same order used in every ballet school in the world. That is not tradition for its own sake: each part prepares the body for the next one.
Two hands first, then one. Pliés to open the joints, tendus to teach the foot to leave the floor and come back to it. The barre is not something to hold on to: it is where the body learns what it will later do alone.
The same work, without help. This is where a shape becomes a shape that holds: balance, épaulement, the first slow adagios.
Travelling steps and jumps in sequence — allegro. Direction, timing, and landing quietly, which is far harder than jumping high.
The class closes with the bow. It is a courtesy, and it is also the moment a child registers that the hour is over and that something was built inside it.
Ages 7 – 10
Seven to ten is the age when a child can finally learn something difficult on purpose: hold a long sequence, accept a correction, repeat a thing until it changes. A ballet class asks for all of that every week, and gives back more than technique.
Between seven and ten a child grows quickly and not always evenly, and the way they stand is still being decided. Hours at a desk and a heavy school bag pull in one direction.
In the studioEvery exercise at the barre is postural work underneath: where the weight falls, how the back holds, how the leg turns from the hip and never from the knee. The habit is built while the body is still deciding.
This is when a child becomes able to keep a long chain in their head — an order, with its own logic, learned once and recalled later.
In the studioNothing is written down. Combinations get longer through the year and are given once, in words and in music. What remembers them is the body.
Learning that a correction is information and not a verdict is one of the hardest things at this age — and one of the most useful, in a classroom or anywhere else.
In the studioThe teacher corrects out loud, in front of everyone, every single class. Children learn to take it, use it and carry on dancing. It stops stinging surprisingly quickly.
Ballet names its movements, and the names are French and precise. Being able to name exactly what you are doing is where thinking about it starts.
In the studioBy the end of the year a child knows dozens of terms and what each one asks the body to do. They learn a foreign vocabulary because they need it, which is the only way anyone ever does.
In a class everyone moves at the same time, to the same music, in the same direction. Nobody wins. What there is instead is a result that only exists if everyone holds up their part.
In the studioOne dancer out of time is visible to the whole room. They learn to watch, to listen and to adjust — and to be proud of something that belongs to the group and not to them.
Music in threes and music in eights. An exercise halved, doubled, reversed. Everything done to the right and then mirrored to the left, which is symmetry with a body inside it.
In the studioThey count a waltz against a march, take a phrase and do it at half speed, and reverse a combination they learned forwards. Fractions, symmetry and pattern — danced years before they are studied.
None of it is taught as a subject. It is taught as a ballet class.
Times and fees
The same class, the same teacher and the same group. What changes is how often your child dances each week.
Enough to learn the class and follow the year.
The second hour is where a correction gets repeated before it is forgotten. It is also the weekly rhythm of the pathway that follows.
Fees for the 2026/2027 season. The registration fee is paid once and is not refundable. Ask the school office about the discounts: they are applied at enrolment.
Before enrolling
A ballet class is easier to understand from inside it. Your child does one, with the group they would join, and then you decide.
For a trial class, contact us. Tell us your child's age, whether they have danced before, and which day suits you — Tuesday or Thursday. We will place them in a class that same week. The trial class costs 12.75 €, paid by card when you book it. Online booking is on its way; for now the school office arranges every trial by phone, WhatsApp or email.
The season
Classes run from September to June, following the school calendar. These are the dates families need in the diary.
Families meet the teachers, the year is laid out and questions are answered before the first class.
The first Elementary class of the season.
Families come into the studio and watch a class from inside.
Auditori de Terrassa. Every group in the school takes part. Dates to be confirmed by the theatre.
A second class open to families, near the end of the year.
The last regular class of the season.
The big one: the whole school on stage at the Auditori de Terrassa. Dates still to be confirmed.
Practical
The rules are few and they are the same for every group in the school. They exist so that an hour of class is actually an hour of class.
The supplier of the school uniform for Pre Ballet, Elementary and the pre-professional programmes is being confirmed for this season. We will tell you which one it is, and where to buy it, before classes begin.
Four things in the bag, every class.
The studio has few rules, and they are the same for every group in the school.
At this level the class builds on itself: an exercise given in October is still being corrected in March. Missing weeks is felt.
Constant communication with families is one of the school's stated values, and this is what it looks like in practice.
Who teaches
She takes the youngest groups of the school, and also teaches Pre-Professional 2 Intermediate and the advanced adult class. The same teacher follows the children from their first class through to Elementary.
Questions
Not in Elementary. At Ballet de Catalunya pointe work begins at twelve — a rule of the school, not a decision taken child by child. Before that age the bones of the foot and the ankle are still forming, and going up on pointe early can do damage that does not undo. It is not brought forward for anyone, however talented or however eager, and it starts inside the pre-professional pathway.
Yes. Elementary takes beginners across the whole age range. Call us, come to a trial class, and the teacher will tell you honestly whether this group or another one fits better.
No. Elementary has no audition and no entry test.
Yes, at seven. It is the same school and the same teacher, and the step is planned for.
Not at this level. Formal assessment starts with the pre-professional programmes. What families get here is a progress report twice a year with the tutor, and an individual tutorial whenever either side asks for one.
No. The 65 € registration fee is paid once per season and is not refundable.
Elementary runs on Tuesdays, with the second hour on Thursdays. Those are the days for this group; other programmes in the school run on other days.
School office
Generalitat de Catalunya Escola Ballet de Catalunya is a private education centre registered with the Departament d'Educació i Formació Professional of the Generalitat de Catalunya, centre code 08079584, for non-regulated dance education. Resolució EDF/4452/2025 of 20 November 2025 (DOGC) · Serveis Territorials del Vallès Occidental · Titular: Fundació Ballet de Catalunya, NIF G66776212.
