Launching Tiny Toes Ballet Suffolk, with classes at Bury St Edmunds, Thurston and Newmarket, is a dream come true for Ellie Mason

A new children’s ballet school in Suffolk has brought classes to Bury St Edmunds and Thurston that also focus on children’s development – ‘not just physical ballet’.

The Tiny Toes Ballet Suffolk franchise is run by Ellie Mason, 24, and Ella Price, 27, both of Bury, who themselves started dancing at a young age.

The Bury and Thurston classes launched in September and take place at RHCAST, in Northgate Street, and the New Green Centre, respectively.

Tiny Toes Ballet Suffolk has also brought in the Newmarket classes - which had been running for a long time - within the franchise.

Ellie said launching the Suffolk classes was ‘definitely’ her dream, and added: “I did a three-year course in performing arts so I love dance and I also love working with children. Intertwining them both is what I have always wanted to do.”

Their ballet classes are for children aged from six months to seven years and each class is integrated with the early years foundation stage framework, which Ellie said ‘allows the children opportunities to develop and thrive’.

Ellie explained that Tiny Toes Ballet was founded by Emma Morgan, a trained ballet dancer and also an experienced primary school teacher.

The website says Emma has combined her extensive knowledge of how children learn, alongside her dance expertise.

The classes are designed to ‘captivate, delight, inspire, motivate, and challenge, whilst developing important language, social, and gross motor skills’.

Ellie said: “So we work on developmental aspects, not just physical ballet. We pop bubbles with our fingers for fine motor skills and do an obstacle course so they can jump, and we tell a story throughout the whole class.”

She said the Bury and Thurston classes – all three in fact – were ‘going really well’.

“We have had lots of good Google reviews, that’s really positive, and we have had lots of positive feedback. We would like to expand the amount of classes we have at each venue.”

Ellie and Ella previously taught for the Tiny Toes franchise in Cambridge before coming together to open Tiny Toes Ballet Suffolk.

Ellie teaches the Bury and Thurston classes while Ella teaches Newmarket, and they also bring Tiny Toes to Little Larks Day Nursery, in Bury.