After always feeling inadequate and experiencing low self-esteem during Grammar School, Claire O’Connor created babyballet to ensure that ALL children felt included.

Ballet has always been a part of Claire’s life from an early age with her mum being an examiner for the Royal Academy of Dance and owning a dance school. However, the pressures of trying to be the ‘perfect ballerina’ made it difficult to find her place in the world.

Becoming a young mum during university brought Claire the first love of her life, her son Harry. Finding a job that allowed her to be the best mum she could be and pursue a career proved very difficult.

Claire’s breakthrough came when she took a job working at her mum’s dance school. Here, she came to the realisation that the challenges and expectations imposed on young children to be the ‘perfect ballerina’ persisted. Claire decided that she wanted to change the perspective of ballet dancers and the stereotypes of how a ballerina should look.

Claire’s philosophy is that anyone can dance and all children have the right to feel included and positive about who they are.

In a candid and relaxed podcast episode on ‘The School Run’, Claire speaks to friends, Jane and Liv, about how and why babyballet came to be.

Listen here on Apple.

Listen here on Spotify.