WESLEY Pritchard has a spring in his step - and he's hoping to make a career out of it.

For the 20-year-old, of Maesglas, Newport, has scooped a coveted place with the prestigious London School of Contemporary Dance.

Wesley is one of the happy few - only 20 dancers are selected from 200 applicants - to have been accepted in the London school this year.

Now the former Colleg Gwent student is packing up, ready to swap the bright-ish lights of Newport for the glare of the footlights and a new home in London.

He said: "I am feeling very excited about the challenge. I'm not scared about branching out on my own."

Perhaps knowing that he will share his flat with three other dancers is a comfort.

"One is Australian and the other two are French - a chance to improve my French maybe?" he said.

The course at the London School of Contemporary Dance is very demanding - students train every day - but Wesley is up for the gruelling schedule.

"I have been training very hard for the past three years and I am used to very long training days," he said.

Classes start at 8.15am and dancers don't leave before 6 or 7pm - and there's no such thing as a week off.

In addition to classical and contemporary dancing classes, Wesley will be taking dance-related subjects, like anatomy, biology and physiotherapy during the three-year course.

At the end of it, he should emerge as a fully-qualified, professional dancer - a goal he has focused on ever since he discovered dancing in a drama class.

"We had to do some movement performance and my teacher noticed that I was pretty good at it. So I decided to take dancing class after that."

Wesley, who studied at the Cross Keys campus, graduated in Performing Art in 2001 and the following year he won a National Award in Dancing.