MEET OUR TEAM
Meet our team of passionate and skilled dance instructors, dedicated to inspiring students of all ages and skill levels. With a diverse range of expertise in various dance styles, our team is here to help you discover the joy of dance and reach your full potential.
Jade Harrison – Principal
Jade has a passion for dance and shares her passion with all of the students in her school.
She is a registered Ballet teacher with the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD), she is a registered teacher with the International Dance Teachers Association (IDTA) enabling her to teach modern Jazz and Tap dancing and is a qualified Acrobatic Art teacher with Acrobatic Arts. She also holds qualifications with the NCSSE for Cheer Dance, Stunts and Tumbling. She has danced from the age of 3 with 26 years teaching experience.
Prior to opening her own school, she spent many years working in the building industry, working her way up through the ranks to a very senior role. The dream however was always to share her love of dance and encourage young students to follow her lead. She continued her training whilst working full time with a major house builder until the opportunity arose to join forces with her Mum to open Jade Harrison School of Dance.
As a qualified RAD teacher Jade is able to teach students safely, ensuring that young children’s bones and muscles are looked after. Dance with the correct teaching improves posture, flexibility and stamina.
Jade holds an Enhanced Disclosure (police clearance as recommended for working with children) and she undertakes continuous Professional Development attending courses held by the RAD to ensure up to the minute knowledge and teaching skills. More recently she has qualified in Progressing Ballet Technique and offers this to all of her dedicated Ballet students.
Lynda Harrison
Jade’s Mum and Business Partner. We finally fulfilled our dream!
Lynda worked for many years in a stressful management role in the building industry but the dream was always to join forces with Jade to open a spectacular dance school providing arguably the best facilities in the North East. Lynda meets and greets, runs the café and dancewear shop and works behind the scenes with Jade to ensure that the school administration runs smoothly.
Hannah Francis
Miss Hannah has danced with us in all genres since being a tiny tot and completed 9 years teacher training with Miss Jade prior to her ongoing train with the Royal Academy of Dance. Having always achieved outstanding results in her Graded and Vocational Exams, it is no surprise to us that she has now passed her Acrobatic Art teachers exams with flying colours and continues to add to her ever growing collection of awards!
During Covid, we decided to keep her busy by enrolling her to become fully qualified in Baby Yogo and Baby Massage! We are sure it will come is useful one of these days (if we ever get a spare hour in our busy timetable)! Miss Hannah is most definitely part of the family and all of our students all love her. As do we!
Kennedy Wyatt
Following in Miss Hannah’s footsteps, Kennedy is our current ‘Teacher in Training’. Miss Jade insists that all of our teachers, go through our ranks to ensure that they follow her own unique kind and caring teaching style (with a little bit of discipline) but injected with lots of fun and laughter. Kennedy is already fulfilling this role admirably.
She was born to work with children. The students look up to this beautiful, talented young ballerina and aspire to be her. We are delighted with her progress and warmly welcome her into our little family.
Peter Allsopp
Peter has been working as a pianist and composer for many years and we are delighted that he still finds time to play for our senior students. He studied music at Huddersfield and Newcastle Universities and gained an LRSM Diploma in Piano Performance in 1997. He is an experienced dance accompanist and has worked with the Hammond School, Royal Ballet School, Elmhurst Ballet, Mark Morris Dance company and Billy Elliot.
He recently performed in the first production of Alan Plater’s final play Looking for Buddy, His other shows include West Side Story at the Sunderland Empire and High Society, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Witches of Eastwick at Theatre Royal Newcastle. He writes music for TV and Radio.
We love Peters wicked sense of humour too and he always puts our students at ease. Even during big exams!
Cassie Valentine
Our School Mascot!
Cassie is adored by Jade and Lynda and has a very important role in that she keeps them both sane when the going gets tough. She’s a cute school mascot too!