Ballet dancer achieves straight As after putting back surgery on hold
A schoolgirl is pursuing her dream of a ballet career after securing 10 A grades in her exams - following fears she would not dance again.
Amy Pollock from Clarkston in East Renfrewshire has scoliosis, or curvature of the spine, and was told she needed urgent surgery as she prepared to sit her exams at Williamwood High School.
The 15-year-old decided to postpone the operation so she could sit her nine National 5 exams and Higher dance along with her friends.
The surgery at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh on 6 June was successful and on Tuesday morning Amy received a text to say she had achieved straight As.
The teenager, who started dancing at the age of two and joined Scottish Ballet’s junior programme at ten, said: “It was scary and hard but if the surgery was going to take the dancing part of me away, I knew I couldn’t let it take my grades as well.
“So I just had to put it to the side and concentrate and work hard.”
On getting her results she said: “I was so shocked and happy, I felt that all the work I put in was worth it.
“Everything went really well with the surgery and I’m looking to start dancing again soon, which is great as I didn’t think I would.”
Amy had scoliosis as a young child but it became more severe at the start of the year and she was told she needed surgery just weeks before sitting her exams.
“That absolutely crushed me – I thought I would never dance again and I didn’t know what was ahead of me,” she said.
Her mother Gillian, 43, said there was “some screaming” when Amy shared her results with the family, including her father and her brother Ben, ten.
Mrs Pollock, a head teacher in Coatbridge, said: “We are incredibly proud of her - she does really put the work in in both her dance and in school.
“We just encourage that and she just seems to thrive on it. We are delighted today.”
She added: “It was major surgery she had so the next day when she was told to stand, that was the best feeling. We knew she had the feeling in her legs and it was just about the road to recovery. Now it’s about working hard to get her dancing back for her.”
“We are incredibly proud of her - she does really put the work in in both her dance and in school”
GILLIAN POLLOCK