WHAT IS THE PLACEMENT EXAM?
The Ruby Karen Project is the first aerial school in Orange County and since 2009, our school studied the behavior of student development in aerial arts based on many factors. As the demand for aerial instruction grew, the school adopted its structured teachings through the IATTP course (International Aerial Teachers Training Program) and started to formulate its own syllabus. In 2014, we created the Placement program and slowly implemented the syllabus. It was also in that year that we started to introduce student examinations (now called the Placement Examination) and was only popularized in 2015.
The Placement Examination is offered yearly to our academic students. These are students that have and are enrolled in our apprentice program. We also offer this to our recreational students who want to take it at will. The examination is an assessment of our student’s response to our instructions. It helps our teachers keep the students’ training on track to ensure strong fundamentals and safely approach progressive elements and skills necessary to get to the next rank.
It also allows our students to take charge of the skills they have learned and are supposed to know and keeps them on the leash to ensure that they do not divulge in unsafe skills without learning the pre-requisites. By conducting the Placement Exam, the student values the necessity of moving forward towards progressive training and avoids skipping essential skills that will be needed in higher skill tricks.
Placement Exam for the apprentices is mandatory and after which, their performance is discussed when the placement results are released
Due to many factors, our school is continuously making efforts to find a balance for our students in working with their vocabulary retention. Our curriculum has a very wide vocabulary base and as such, the placement levels have grown to seven (7) Levels.
We focus on two aerial apparatus – Tissu and Hoop. Recently, due to the popularity of our other disciplines, we have added Trapeze and Rope. Hammock/ Sling has not been intended to be examined due to its associated Tissu/ Silks discipline, Thus, those wanting to be placed in Hammock skill level must otherwise be examined under the Tissu syllabus. We will provide students with a choice of two (2) apparatus to be examined on.
See Placement Chart
LEVEL 1 – Beginners 1
LEVEL 2 – Beginners 2
LEVEL 3 – Beginners 3
LEVEL 4 – Intermediate 1
LEVEL 5 – Intermediate 2
LEVEL 6 – Advance 1 – Pre-Professional 1
LEVEL 7 – Advance 2 – Pre-professional 2
