Our Teachers

Our Mandarin teacher Ms Xiaoyu Shi is a trained and experienced qualified teacher born and raised in China. She has gained a qualified teacher status in the UK. She teaches Mandarin at all levels including GCSE, AS and A2.   

She also runs outreach lessons at local primary schools. Her lessons incorporate a wide range of teaching strategies to motivate students and maintain their interest. These included drama, singing, dancing and games.  

She is particularly keen to work in a setting where children can develop their Mandarin skills from an early age and develop a strong foundation for possible future study. 

Megan Gong 

 She is  qualified and passionate teacher of Chinese, having studied both at undergraduate and master's level. She has over 5 years teaching experience overseas in 3 countries, where she has designed and delivered Mandarin courses to a range of ages. In Mongolia, she was solely responsible for developing schemes of work and in Pakistan, she was the main lead for teacher training and development for the Confucius Institute and managed a range of projects and performances. For the past year, she has worked as a form tutor and teaching assistant at Huili School, Wellington College China.

Through her research and experience, she has acquired a repertoire of teaching skills and methods, which focus on creating a diverse and lively learning environment, where young learners study through various mediums and where they are treated as individuals. 

Max trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama and has worked widely in theatre film and television, with acting credits ranging from leading roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company to 'East Enders'.

Max has coached, taught and directed young actors of all ages.

At the Hammersmith Lyric theatre, he has written and directed many shows performed by young people, including ‘Olympic Dreams’ and ‘Journey to the West’.

Max has run a number of youth theatre groups across London and is currently co-director of Brixton Youth Theatre.

On the feature film ‘Thor 2’, Max devised and ran the children’s casting workshops. He also worked on set, helping to direct the child actors. Other young actors coaching credits include ‘Da Vinci’s Demons’ for Sky TV and the film ‘Pigeon English’.

Max has just returned from acting at ‘Theatre by the Lake’ in Keswick and is currently directing a film which he has also written. The film ‘Eye of the Beholder’, in which he played a leading role, has just been nominated for 3 awards at the 'Nice International Film Festival'.

Dylan Vivian 

Dylan Vivian has been creating films since the age of 7. Trained professionally in the art of lighting, sound, editing and photography, his career as a filmmaker and photographer has taken him on many interesting and unique shoots. 

He has combined his passion of teaching and filmmaking and now teaches young people to make films, looking at the full process from start to finish exactly as they do on a real film set.