The Royal Ballet School is a British school of classical ballet training founded in 1926 by the Anglo-Irish ballerina and choreographer Ninette de Valois. The school's aim is to train and educate outstanding classical ballet dancers, especially for the Royal Ballet (based at the Royal Opera House in London) and the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Admission to the school is based purely on dancing talent and potential, regardless of academic ability or personal circumstances, and 90% of current students rely on financial support to attend the school. The school is based at two sites, White Lodge, Richmond Park (for students aged 11–16) and Covent Garden (for students from 16 to 19 years old) based in purpose-built studios on Floral Street, adjacent to the Royal Opera House. The Royal Ballet School has produced dancers and choreographers of international renown, including Dame Margot Fonteyn, Dame Beryl Grey, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Dame Darcey Bussell, Alessandra Ferri, Viviana Durante, and Sergei Polunin, as well as the current director of The Royal Ballet, Kevin O'Hare. Graduates of the school have also achieved employment in musical theatre, contemporary and jazz dance, television and film. History In 1926, the Irish-born dancer Ninette de Valois founded the Academy of Choreographic Art, a dance school for girls and the predecessor of today's Royal Ballet School. Her intention was to form a repertory ballet company and school, leading her to collaborate with theatrical producer and theatre owner Lilian Baylis. Baylis owned the Old Vic theatre and acquired Sadler's Wells theatre in 1925. In 1928, she engaged de Valois to stage dance performances at both theatres and she re-opened Sadler's Wells theatre in 1931, with de Valois' school moving into studios on the site as the Sadler's Wells Ballet School, teaching both boys and girls. At the same time, the Vic-Wells Ballet Company was formed using students of the school and other notable dancers of the era. Both the school and the ballet company developed quickly and after ballet performances ceased at the Old Vic, the ballet company was renamed the Sadler's Wells Ballet. In 1946, the company moved to become the resident ballet company at the newly re-opened Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and as a result, in 1947 the school moved from Sadler's Wells to premises in Barons Court, with academic education being introduced for younger students. Following rapid expansion, in 1955 the school secured the premises at White