Five years ago at the age of ten Sussex prodigy Henry Dowden became one of the talented few to make it into the prestigious Royal Ballet School in London. This month the 15-year-old from Burgess Hill will graduate from its lower school in Richmond to the upper school after beating off competition from some of the best dancers in the world.

“It really is about training ballet dancers to be the best ballet dancers in the world,” says Henry’s mother, Rebecca Dowden.

Henry’s success in graduating to the upper school has been extraordinary. Not only did he face the pressure of outshining the world’s elite ballet youths, but Henry also had an injury to contend with in the middle of the audition process.

He was training for the final audition when, at the end of January, he fell from a bad landing, ripping the cartilage in his knee. He had to undergo keyhole surgery after 12 days of MRIs and scans, leaving him unable to complete the final audition.

“I hoped they’d seen enough potential in my first audition,” Henry says. “When I found out I had got in, there were so many mixed emotions. Some people got in, some didn’t, but you’re so excited you can’t really hide it. It’s nice to know that the last five years haven’t just been for nothing.”

Before finding ballet, Henry had spent his childhood mostly just playing football with friends.

“I had no real ambition before dancing but I think I knew I would end up in the theatre at some point, as all the family have done before,” Henry admits.

He comes from a family of performers, with his parents and grandparents having backgrounds in acting and singing. His flair for ballet was discovered when his dance teacher recommended ballet to see how it would help him in other forms of dance.

His teacher encouraged him to try out for the Junior Associates, based at the Royal Ballet School’s Upper School in London’s Covent Garden, where he then attended classes every other Saturday for a year. He then auditioned for the lower school, and received a letter a month later offering him a place.

“As soon as I got to the school, I knew this was the place to be, and after a few weeks here I knew that this was what I wanted,” Henry says.

He describes the rush of being on stage as “the best feeling in the world”, and this enthusiasm clearly helped throughout his time at the lower school, when he performed in The Royal Ballet’s Nutcracker for three seasons and in Peter And The Wolf in 2010. The next stage, to take his dancing a step further, was to aim for a place at the upper school, where only a select few make it through the interview process.

This summer, after graduating from the lower school, he has been undergoing physiotherapy, a strict gym regime and private training in the coming months to build up his stamina to prepare for the demanding schedule of the upper school this month.

“He’s just very lucky to have had the most fantastic training all the way through,” says Rebecca.

Henry’s ultimate goal is to be chosen by the Royal Ballet Company. Two or three upper school students, on average, make it into the company each year. Fortunately, the upper school is based next to the Royal Opera House where the Royal Ballet perform, which will act as a constant motivation for Henry over the three years he will attend.

“I’m immensely proud - I always knew he had the talent,” Rebecca says, “and I’m very excited about what lies in the future for Henry.”