Dan's Story
Today Dan Evans, a 19 year old from Folkestone in Kent, is successfully climbing the first rungs of his career ladder. However, back in 2001 as an 11 year old boy starting school at Brockhill Park Performing Arts College, Dan found himself hanging out with the 'wrong crowd'. He found some parts of school “boring” and did not like sitting still at his desk, learning out of 'heavy-going' text books.
However, in Year 8, school-life changed for Dan when Brockhill became a Creative Partnerships School of Creativity.“Everything seemed to open up to me”, says Dan. “Lessons become more practical and suddenly a lot more fun.”
Throughout school Dan began to realise he had an interest in dance and this became a channel for his emotions: “It took time for me to get into my dance but it really began to help me get out of trouble. I got such a buzz from the performances I took part in. My grades began to pick up as the teachers took a new approach to their style of teaching – the lessons I found ‘boring’ suddenly became much more interesting.”
Dan explains how science lessons became creative – rather than just reading about it in class, now teachers and pupils were testing the theory of gravity outside the classroom, after having built and launched their own rockets. When he was in Year 10 he saw the school transform the old sports hall into a proper theatre with working equipment and a full stage. Dan says, “We had somewhere to perform and rehearse properly. Not just in some small classroom but in a real theatre. All the dance lessons are now carried out in there too.”
Dan left Brockhill Park School in July 2006 with good qualifications, including an A* in Dance GCSE. He then went back to Brockhill to study for a further two years, achieving A-Levels in Dance and Performing Arts.
Now at 19 years old, Dan is working on 'The Gap Year Project' at Brockhill School where he is a teaching assistant. He also goes out to local primary schools to offer one hour dance workshops to Year 5 classes. Through the project, Dan is working towards an NVQ Level 3 in teaching.
This is not where it ends; Dan is also sharing his passion for dance with children. In addition to 'The Gap Year Project', Dan tours local after-school clubs delivering dance workshops. This is just a snapshot of Dan’s achievements. He is adventurous, likes a challenge and wants to tour the world through his love of dance. His next steps? Possibly a PGCE so he can go on to teach and inspire others in dance, or even a scholarship to study dance in America.
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Dan's Story
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Dan Evans is a 19 year-old from Kent whose life changed when his school joined CCE's 'Schools of Creativity' programme. Dan began to realise he had an interest in dance and this became a channel for his emotions.
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