Me, myself and my life so far
This is my first post and I thought the best place to start, would be to introduce my self. So here goes.
My name is Alison Lonsdale and I have been dancing since I can remember and have always wanted to pursue a career within the industry. After finishing sixth form, I attended Merseyside Dance and drama centre so that I could attain my DDE's with the ISTD. Once completing my qualifications I started to work for Princess Cruises as a dancer and stayed there for 6 years, performing on various ships taking me across the world. Climbing from dancer to assistant cast manager and then progressing on to cast manager made life at sea exciting and a huge rollercoaster, but I loved every second. After my career at sea I came home to teach and begin my forever. Until I became a teacher I always felt that something was missing.
I qualified with a DDE from the ISTD in Imperial Ballet, Modern Theatre and Tap Dance, and have been lucky enough to teach in a vast amount of schools and teaching all abilities across the north of England. Currently, I am teaching dance and Yoga at Birtenshaw School and College in the North West. This was a journey that I never though I would have the opportunity to delve into. Birtenshaw are a school for children and young adults with special educational needs and disability, with an autism friendly environment. They have up-to-date facilities and a full gym/dance studio to aid the opportunity for them to get involved, and for students to explore their passion.
If you have taught in private dance schools or even primary or high schools you will come across challenges of motivation and participation, and we have to tackle the same issues. Some days you say jump and the students say how high, other days you don't even get a reply. When I tell people what I do within my job I always get the same conclusion and joy, "you must find it so rewarding". And without disappointing, my reply is always "yes, I do"! We set different targets for each student, which might seem very simple for those without additional needs or a disability. Students targets range from aiming to throw a beanbag in the air and being able to catch it, to performing a modern dance and remembering the whole routine without aid. Targets are set, met and over achieved and every step is a challenge. I have been working at Birtenshaw for only 4 months now and know I have a lot to learn. But what I have learnt is that you quickly pick up tricks to adapt your lessons to suit your students.
I also teach ISTD syllabi in a local dance school a few nights a week. So as you can imagine, life is busy, but I would not have it any other way. Gaining experience in teaching a range of students has helped me develop awareness, vision and a huge want to share these experiences. Hopefully, blogging throughout the BAPP course will help me put words on paper, to find structure and sense to the mass of information we are about to intake. I look forward to reading other blogs, thanks for reading, let's do this.
My name is Alison Lonsdale and I have been dancing since I can remember and have always wanted to pursue a career within the industry. After finishing sixth form, I attended Merseyside Dance and drama centre so that I could attain my DDE's with the ISTD. Once completing my qualifications I started to work for Princess Cruises as a dancer and stayed there for 6 years, performing on various ships taking me across the world. Climbing from dancer to assistant cast manager and then progressing on to cast manager made life at sea exciting and a huge rollercoaster, but I loved every second. After my career at sea I came home to teach and begin my forever. Until I became a teacher I always felt that something was missing.
I qualified with a DDE from the ISTD in Imperial Ballet, Modern Theatre and Tap Dance, and have been lucky enough to teach in a vast amount of schools and teaching all abilities across the north of England. Currently, I am teaching dance and Yoga at Birtenshaw School and College in the North West. This was a journey that I never though I would have the opportunity to delve into. Birtenshaw are a school for children and young adults with special educational needs and disability, with an autism friendly environment. They have up-to-date facilities and a full gym/dance studio to aid the opportunity for them to get involved, and for students to explore their passion.
If you have taught in private dance schools or even primary or high schools you will come across challenges of motivation and participation, and we have to tackle the same issues. Some days you say jump and the students say how high, other days you don't even get a reply. When I tell people what I do within my job I always get the same conclusion and joy, "you must find it so rewarding". And without disappointing, my reply is always "yes, I do"! We set different targets for each student, which might seem very simple for those without additional needs or a disability. Students targets range from aiming to throw a beanbag in the air and being able to catch it, to performing a modern dance and remembering the whole routine without aid. Targets are set, met and over achieved and every step is a challenge. I have been working at Birtenshaw for only 4 months now and know I have a lot to learn. But what I have learnt is that you quickly pick up tricks to adapt your lessons to suit your students.
I also teach ISTD syllabi in a local dance school a few nights a week. So as you can imagine, life is busy, but I would not have it any other way. Gaining experience in teaching a range of students has helped me develop awareness, vision and a huge want to share these experiences. Hopefully, blogging throughout the BAPP course will help me put words on paper, to find structure and sense to the mass of information we are about to intake. I look forward to reading other blogs, thanks for reading, let's do this.
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