The Principal
Shelley Gray was educated in Poole and Bournemouth before studying Performing Arts at Winchester University which propelled her to London to work as an actress and teacher at the start of her career. She continues to perform as a professional voice-over artist alongside her committments as a full-time teacher of English. Shelley has worked in first schools, primary, junior and middle schools and she has devoted part of her career to teaching in key stage 3 and 4 in the private sector. In conjunction with this, Shelley leads Drama Workshops with amateur dramatic companies in Dorset and Hampshire. Her teaching supports actors as they prepare a new production for performance and focuses on developing the character.
Writers Inked was conceived from a natural desire to see children writing for pleasure and becoming more confident writers. Realizing that children love performing stories, acting, role-play and improvisation, which are all elements of story-making, Shelley wanted to offer young writers the opportunity to orally rehearse their stories, adapt them and then write them so that the whole process has been pleasurable for the writer.
For the last ten years of her teaching career Shelley has enjoyed the role of English Subject leader in schools in Poole, Head of Drama and Music at Burley school and she has led English in schools with children aged four up to sixteen, alongside her role as full-time teacher. She is enjoying the changes taking place in the Creative Curriculum which encourage a broader and more exciting approach to teaching where performance plays a very important part. Shelley has brought many performers and actors into the school as a hook for the start of an exciting new topic to capture the children's imagination. For pleasure, Shelley enjoys visiting the theatre to see live performances and currently writes and directs plays for schools, some of which have been submitted for publication.
Shelley's favourite authors are; Bruno Bettleheim, ('The uses of enchantment. The meaning and importance of fairytales') 'JK Rowling', ('Harry Potter') 'Enid Blyton' ('The Famous Five', 'The Magic Faraway Tree, ) 'Cornelia Funke', ('Dragon Rider') 'Francesca Simon' ('Horrid Henry'), 'George Orwell', (1984') 'Gregory Maguire' ('Wicked') and too many more to list!