Being late to dance class is actually kind of a big deal. Since warm-up exercises are designed to help the dancer’s muscles (and tendons/ligaments) prepare for the demands of class, late students should know what you expect of them when they arrive in the classroom so that they are not risking injury.
How you handle being tardy is up to you. Perhaps you just tell the student to do some plies and tendus before joining the class if it isn’t too far into the barre. If the student is more than a few minutes late, many teachers ask that they just sit and watch the class instead of trying to catch up.
If you have students who are late on a regular basis, it may be helpful to speak with the parents. As for deciding on make-up classes, it’s really a matter of what you are comfortable with. Do students just lose that class if they are too late to join? Or can they come to another class and substitute it for the one they miss? The important thing is to have a policy that you consistently enforce so that everyone gets the same treatement.
What are your rules? How do you handle a student coming late to class? I’d love to hear what various teachers are doing out there…
I am such a sucker for this. At a few places I teach if they come more than 10 minutes late they catch them at the door and won’t even let them in. Which is helpful for me. The other places it’s up to me and I have such a hard time asking the kids to sit out because most likely it’s not their fault that they are late, it’s the parents. If it happens more than 2 times, I speak to the parents. I find it so disruptive. Yesterday one of my students came in 15 minutes late. The class is almost over by then, just doesn’t make sense to me, but I think I do need to be more strict about it because it keeps happening. Thanks for writing about the issue!
Maria–thanks for the comment! It is terribly disruptive, I agree! I think being more strict about it might be a good idea…otherwise the students will just get in the habit of being late (or, as you pointed out, more likely, their parents!). Plus, not properly warming up can actually be dangerous to their bodies, so it’s a bad habit for them (their parents!) to get into. 🙂 If you come up with anything that works well for you, don’t hesitate to post it here! Good luck!
Students who come in late are such a distraction, but at the school where I work, we are required to have them participate if they show up. I ask dancers to warm themselves up a bit before joining in, but this isn’t always possible when your students are too young to know what/how to warm up. Thankfully in most cases I have an assistant who can step away and help the dancer get ready. When I don’t have someone there to help out I usually give the group a static exercise to complete while I approach the dancer and give them a few things to do before joining. With my youngest dancers, I will encourage the class to “teach them about what we were doing” before the late dancer entered. It serves as a good review and practice of terminology for the on time dancers and also gives the latecomer a chance to work through some of the exercises they missed. It’s not a perfect system, but it works pretty well!
Some great suggestions heere Noel–thanks so much for the comment!