"Teaching has always been important to me; the feeling of sparking a new passion in someone and providing the wisdom of what I have learnt cannot be beaten"
TEACHING
Shannon has vast experience when it comes to teaching children as she spent many of her teenage years helping out at her local dance school, Mid Wales Dance Academy. She taught children aged 3-16 years old, starting out when she was only 12 years old herself. She assisted with classes of ballet, tap, jazz and hip hop, moving onto musical theatre when she was in her final year of university. When she was 18 years old, she was given the opportunity to lead her own class without supervision, called Junior Technique ballet, which was for the more advanced in the younger aged groups to prepare them for more senior and difficult classes in the future. She has recently completed her Level 3 certificate in Education and Teaching which benefits her moving forward into the teaching side of performing.
TESTIMONIALS
In 2012 I invited Shannon to join my group of helpers at Mid Wales Dance Academy, assisting with young children in their dance classes on Saturday mornings. She was keen to do this, and became a valuable member of the team, reliable and always willing to assist in any way.
As she became older I felt able to give her more responsibility and the year before she left to go to full time training, she became a reserve teacher for our Junior Technique class. She enjoyed the extra responsibility and was soon devising her own exercises for this non syllabus class, which were well thought out. I have invited her back to teach classes for our Mid Wales Dance Academy Summer School.
Lesley Walker, Mid Wales Dance Academy owner
I initially employed Shannon as a teaching assistant for my Junior Technique class, which is designed for pupils who show promise either in technique, musicality, or performance to enhance their skills and build confidence. Because of its nature, the class content is varied, so I needed someone who would learn quickly, and work independently with the pupils when they could see corrections that needed to be made. I had already seen Shannon working as an assistant in RAD Primary and Pre-Primary classes within Mid Wales Dance Academy, as well as teaching her in numerous grades over the years, so felt confident in offering her the position.
Shannon was always punctual, and enthusiastic for each session. She spoke to the pupils with authority as well as compassion, and was never afraid to approach a pupil to offer help without disrupting the flow of the class. She was popular amongst the pupils, treating the more confident or chatty members of the class with the right balance of confidence and firmness, and the shyer members with compassion and encouragement. I was extremely impressed with her as a teaching assistant, to the point that when I couldn’t run the sessions for a few months due to other work commitments, I didn’t hesitate in asking her to run the class on her own.
She took on the challenge willingly, and over the next few months I acted as her mentor, teaching her to use her voice to gain the attention of the whole class, how to mirror her movement to help with demonstration, and how to teach new exercises. She began to choreograph and teach her own exercises, for example port de bras, or allegro studies while I observed, and she very quickly became confident enough to run the sessions with Lesley, the school owner, in the room simply to keep an eye and to offer her back up and assistance with any of the children should it be needed. Shannon is a polite, enthusiastic, confident and compassionate teacher, and I would not hesitate to offer her work in the future.
Megan Walker RADRTS, Mid Wales Dance Academy senior teacher
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