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Run classes across your studios, schedule rehearsals alongside them, take bookings and payments online, and give parents a clear view of their child's progress through the grades.
Dance schools have their own rhythm: weekly recreational classes and private lessons, busy exam terms and the organised chaos of show week. AMES keeps the classes, rehearsals, bookings, payments, registers and progress for all of it in one connected record, so nothing has to be copied between systems.
UK Governing Body
Royal Academy of Dance
Typical Pricing
£6-£12 per class
Class Size
10-20 students
Coordinating costumes, sizes, payments and fittings across multiple classes for a single show is a logistical maze that consumes weeks of admin time. An end-of-year show can involve a large number of costumes spread across many routines, each with different suppliers, fabrics and prices. Size exchanges trickle in for weeks after the first order, late payments hold up bulk orders, and missing items are often only discovered at dress rehearsal when it is too late to reorder. Long supplier lead times mean a single overlooked order can derail a routine. Add accessories, headpieces and shoes, and the spreadsheet soon grows beyond what one person can reliably track.
Blocking rehearsal slots across studios while avoiding clashes with regular classes, exams and competitions requires constant calendar juggling. Students performing in several routines need different rehearsal calls, and younger dancers depend on parents for drop-off and collection at unusual times. Theatre hire windows are limited and expensive, so tech and dress rehearsals have to be planned months ahead around the venue's own programme. Coordinating lighting, sound and staging across back-to-back run-throughs, while making sure every cast member gets enough stage time, turns scheduling into a full-time job in the weeks before the show.
Students taking ballet, tap, modern and street dance need schedules that work together, and one change ripples through the whole timetable. Families want back-to-back classes so they are not making four separate trips each week, but studio rooms suit different disciplines: sprung floors for ballet and contemporary, mirrors and barres for technique classes, open space for street and commercial. Teacher specialisms limit flexibility further, because a RAD-qualified ballet teacher cannot simply swap into an ISTD modern slot. Balancing student demand, rooms and teacher expertise across a week means every timetable change triggers a cascade of adjustments.
RAD, ISTD and IDTA exams happen at different times with different requirements, and tracking which students are exam-ready and chasing entry fees is relentless. Each exam board has its own syllabus, fee structure and registration deadline. Solo and group entries have separate processes, and accompanists must be booked around the exam timetable. Off-site exams add transport and supervision. After results arrive, certificates need recording against each student, results feed into progression planning, and parents expect prompt updates. Without a central record, deadlines slip and entry fees go uncollected.
Show season is the highlight of the dance school year, but it demands exceptional scheduling. This guide covers rehearsal calendar management, venue hire, tech and dress rehearsal planning, multi-cast coordination, backstage scheduling, and keeping parents informed throughout.
A dance school show is the culmination of months of work and the most visible representation of your school to the wider community. This guide covers every aspect of performance management, from building the running order to printing the programme.
A parent portal is not a luxury feature for dance schools. It is the communication backbone that replaces the dozens of WhatsApp messages, printed letters, and repeated phone calls that consume your admin hours. This guide covers what your portal should include and how to get parents using it.
Building a timetable for a multi-discipline dance school is one of the most complex scheduling challenges in children's activities. This guide covers balancing styles, matching rooms to requirements, aligning teacher specialisms, and creating family-friendly scheduling.
Running classes across multiple studios demands more than a paper timetable pinned to the office wall. This guide covers visual drag-and-drop scheduling, room tagging, discipline colour-coding, clash detection, and building views that work for both teachers and principals.
Your teachers are your most valuable asset and your biggest operational variable. This guide covers tracking qualifications, managing discipline specialisms, arranging holiday cover, handling pay rates across different class types, and generating accurate timesheets.
Dance examinations are central to most UK dance schools, but managing entries across RAD, ISTD, and IDTA involves navigating different syllabi, fee structures, and administrative processes. This guide explains the key differences and shows how to track everything efficiently.
Effective progression management is what separates a dance school that retains pupils for a decade from one that loses them after Grade 3. This guide covers syllabus tracking, readiness assessment, mock exams, batch grade updates, and clear communication with parents about their child's journey.
Costume logistics can make or break a dance school's show season. This guide covers everything from supplier management and size collection to fitting schedules, accessory tracking, and the show-week timeline that keeps backstage running smoothly.
Chasing payments is one of the least enjoyable parts of running a dance school, but it does not have to consume your evenings and weekends. This guide covers automating every payment type a dance school handles, from term fees and exam charges to costume deposits and show tickets.
Dance is the second most popular children's activity in the UK after swimming. Starting a dance school requires specific qualifications, the right studio space, and an understanding of the examination and performance culture that makes dance unique.
Lay out your classes, private lessons, terms and one-off rehearsals across every studio and site on one live timetable that the office, teachers and families share. Each class has its own capacity, levels can carry an age range so families see the right classes, full classes offer families the waiting list, and a freed place is offered to the next family automatically. Teachers see their own classes and registers in AMES Teach, while the office sees the whole week.
Import the Royal Academy of Dance's published exam levels, from graded ballet to vocational grades, into your levels, or build your own grades, level groups and skills for any syllabus you teach, including ISTD and IDTA. Teachers record skills and notes in AMES Teach, and families see their child's current grade, the next one and the certificates they have earned in AMES Connect. One record holds each dancer's progress in every style they take.
Collect term fees by GoCardless Direct Debit, or by card, Apple Pay and Google Pay through AMES Pay, from the same place as your bookings. Charge per class, per term or with credits. Sibling discounts follow the rules you set, failed payments are retried automatically with the parent told, and receipts stay with each family's record, so you can see who has paid without a spreadsheet.
AMES Connect gives parents one place for bookings, payments, receipts, progress and messages. They can report an absence and book a replacement class, keep health and medical notes up to date, read noticeboard updates about rehearsals and show dates, and message your team without searching through email threads. Your team sees each message with the family's details beside it.
Schedule rehearsals as one-off sessions on the same timetable as your classes, so clashes are visible before parents are told. With the AMES events module, you can sell show tickets online in AMES Connect, choose who each ticket type is available to, and check guests in on the night from a door list or QR code. Noticeboard posts and messages keep families up to date in the run-up to the show.
Record each teacher's qualifications and documents, such as teaching qualifications, DBS checks and first aid, with expiry dates, and require a qualification for the classes that need it, so an unqualified assignment is blocked or flagged. Teachers clock in, see their shifts and pick up open shifts in AMES Teach, and timesheets are built from their clock-ins, ready for approval and export to Xero Payroll.
See how AMES can automate bookings, payments, and communication for your dance business.
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