Every year, a crop of year 6 students from schools across the Illawarra audition for a place in the dance program at Wollongong High School of the Performing Arts (WHSPA). They turn up on audition day, high on nerves and anticipation, hopeful their two-minute prepared dance piece will go smoothly, without a slip or leg wobble.

The number of children auditioning has been going up every year, due to the popularity of the dance program, which has been driven by seriously good Higher School Certificate results (the best in the state) and word-of-mouth by parents. This year, 95 students were vying for a spot in two year 7 dance classes. Some children were not offered a place due to the high numbers of auditionees.

Yet the criteria for who gets an offer is not based on who has the best pointed feet or who can land the most perfect pirouette. Those things may have some bearing, but old-fashioned principles - showing respect to others and being enthusiastic, patient, hard-working and a team player - count for more, says WHSPA dance program co-ordinator Chris Richards.

And how, you may be wondering, are those personal qualities assessed in a dance audition?

Richards and Nadina Bampton, who jointly co-ordinate the dance program, watch the young students when they are put into small groups to learn a set piece of choreography.

"We are looking for the ones who are givers rather than takers," says Richards.

"We are looking for the kids who look happy when they dance and who experience the joy of it."

Richards tells the story of a former student who was twice knocked back for the program yet was keen enough to ask for feedback.

"She went away and worked on a few things, came back and successfully got in," he says.

"That student ended up getting 96 per cent in her HSC dance exam."

Richards and Bampton also pore over the written reports from the primary schools, not necessarily seeking out the kids with the best academic results, but looking twice at those who show application in their school work. Work ethic and diligence are important and they look for those qualities in the comments from the referees.

"We are not a Fame school that can offer students a pathway into an overseas company," Richards says.

"We can support them and help them with that direction, but we are foremost an education institution, and I think that's why the parents encourage their children to come to WHSPA because they know they will get an all-round education.

"We have twin goals of academic achievement and achievement in the performing arts, and that makes us very unique."

So why are kids and their parents so eager to secure a spot in the dance program, when dance is seen by many as a soft subject for the HSC? And isn't dance an extracurricular activity that should be kept separate from school work?

Richards smiles when these points of view are put to him and then lets the results do the talking. Ninety-five per cent of WHSPA students achieve band six results for HSC dance. The school's HSC dance results are on average 16 per cent above the state average.

"We've been the top-performing school in HSC dance for the past three years," Richards says.

The year 12 class of 2014 received 36 nominations for Call Back - a showcase of exemplary performances and compositions by HSC dance students. A nomination signals a perfect or near-perfect mark.

Seven students - Tracey Gu, Emily Herbert, Brayden Kennedy, Ruby McLean, Alisa Rice, Maddison Smith and Kaelah Wilson - were chosen for Call Back for all three components (core composition, core performance and major study performance).

In 2012, WHSPA produced the state's top-ranked HSC dance student, Catrina Ralph, and Michelle Carli, who was placed third.

It is not uncommon for the school to have multiple students score in the high 90s for their HSC marks.

This year, when Richards was asked by his year 12 students to fill out their early entry forms for university, he noticed the majority of students scored 15 to 20 marks higher for dance than their other subjects in the trial HSC exams and assessments.

"We are often having to convince parents that dance may not be a vocational option for all of the students, but it will certainly provide them with the contributing marks to their ATAR to get them into any university course, and that's been proven over and over again," he says.

"If they audition in year 6, I know by the time they get to year 12, dance will be the first or the second-best subject they have, regardless of what intellect they have in other subjects."

The school's former dance students have gone into arts-related careers and gained entry for tertiary studies in law, science and medicine.

"The arts industry is so demanding and fickle, and Australia has a very narrow funnel of opportunities in dance as a profession," he says.

"The kids here get that all-round education so they can then choose what they want to do."

High academic marks aside, Richards says the WHSPA dance program prepares students more broadly for life.

"They are very employable because of their work ethic, their discipline, and the way they present themselves in public," he says.

Robbie Curtis is a former WHSPA student who achieved a band six for HSC dance in 2006. After high school, Curtis moved to New Zealand to train in contemporary and classical dance at the New Zealand School of Dance in Wellington.

He joined the internationally acclaimed Brisbane-based contemporary circus company Circa as a full-time ensemble member in early 2013.

"I got three Call Back nominations for dance and I did quite well in the rest of my HSC subjects as well," Curtis says.

"It was a really good decision for me to do dance. I would definitely encourage it as a subject because sometimes as a male there can be a kind of a weird taboo around it in schools, but I think it's a wonderful subject to pursue because not only is the faculty of dance really strong, and they're getting the marks because they understand the curriculum and what is needed of the students, but they also encourage openness and a positivity."

As dry as it may sound, the trump card of WHSPA's dance program is Richards and Bampton's inside-out understanding of the curriculum.

"Every year, for every unit of work, Nadina and I refine what we do and how we do it," he says.

"Particularly in the past two years, the year 12 classes have gone through a revised program and already we are seeing the benefits of that."

Before Richards started at WHSPA 12 years ago, he was the dance consultant for the NSW Department of Education's Creative Arts Unit.

"I was involved with teacher professional learning and curriculum design," he recalls.

During his three-year stint in Sydney at State Office, Richards was also involved on the curriculum committee for the NSW Board of Studies; and he was the supervisor of marking for HSC Dance. Richards co-wrote the years 7-10 dance syllabus and the stage 6 (years 11 and 12) dance syllabus.

"That theoretical aspect has also been a passion of mine and I've been able to apply that to my teaching practice," he says.

"I've evolved as a teacher over the years and I can now confidently stand up in front of a year 12 class and teach them a dance. I can teach them how to choreograph and I can teach them how to analyse works and essay-writing skills."

The WHSPA dance program involves students performing dance pieces, choreographing their own dances, and through writing demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the skills that underpin the theories and practices of dance composition.

The students work on their own, as well as collectively with others in their class.

"A lot of people think it's just dancing around the room and they don't understand the rigour of it," Richards says.

Students also have to be prepared to follow the rules. Arriving in class without your dance uniform could result in a lunchtime detention.

"We are very strict, but the kids really love the boundaries that are set," he says.

The dancer's personal values, which are initially looked for in the year 6 audition, become critical during the school's years 7-12 program.

"The students get six years of immersion in the program as a dancer, as a choreographer, and as a writer," Richards says.

"They get to participate, and view and analyse their own works, their friends' works, and the school's works. We bring in outside choreographers to work with them so they get this lovely fusion of styles and methods and what defines us from a lot of schools is that the kids have fun here.

"They are really engaged in what they are doing because of the variety and the way in which it is given to them. Nadina and I have programs in place that really develop all of that over time. It's a developmental approach."

Richards, by his own admission, doesn't have the typical background of a dance teacher, who usually has danced competitively from a very early age.

"It was when I started doing dance as part of my PE course [at university] that I realised I had skill in that area and that I found it really creative and interesting," he says.

Richards studied further in that direction and then became a full-time high school dance teacher.

"I draw such energy from teaching students who have so much love for dance," he says.