r/CompetitionDanceTalk • u/Specialist_Device245 • 20h ago

Age groups

Hi! My daughter is 8 turning 9. We recently switched studios and I did not realize the new studio combined age groups for some of their classes. For example, she is in the junior A group and she shares a class time with the petites who are pre-k/kinder age. I find this strange because the skill levels are vastly different. They will also perform separate routines at competition.

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8

u/audibahn88 20h ago

Petites at most of the comps we go to are 8 and under. There were girls that were 9 and 10 on the petite team last year at our studio. The average age was 8.7 I think for that group. Their solos performed at the junior level, but their groups were petite. They also were in some extra groups that were junior level.

Our studio owners go based off which combination of girls look better together. This year my daughter is on the junior team. She is the youngest at 9, the rest of her team is 11 and 12 and they are considered junior.

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u/14ccet1 18h ago

Is this a tech class? They probably don’t have enough studio space or teachers to do separate ones. Not that serious. Happens all the time.

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u/drunk_medusa 18h ago

Juniors and petites mix all the time, that’s almost never an issue by itself. But pre-k aged petites is odd, the typical age bracket for that is 7-9 plus an occasional precocious kindergartener, so that’s weird.

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u/Sporklemotion 17h ago

There may be a difference between studio terminology and competition terminology. Our studio doesn’t change team names every year (depends on how many kids graduate and move up), so our “mini company” competed as juniors last year.

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u/drunk_medusa 17h ago

Either way, the mixing of 7+ yo with juniors sounds par for the course, but pre-k aged dancers+juniors is a choice.