THEATRE group Stagecoach is celebrating after its Mini Stages were finalists in the prestigious 2016 Music Teacher Awards for excellent.

The Mini Stages is the name given to the theatre class containing two – four year olds and Stagecoach principal Sheryll Fox is immensely proud of her little ones.

She said: “The Mini Stages classes came about after we started to receive a lot of interest from parents of children under four-years-old and so far they have worked really well.

“The classes are arranged differently in that the parents stay with the children throughout. It’s slightly more focused on dance and drama and we have a lot of resources available that we can utilise to get the best out of the children.

“The kids really enjoy it and some of them have already started to move onto the harder classes.”

The Mini Stages were nominated for the Best Musical Theatre Education Resource Award, which recognised how good the classes are and how beneficial they are to the kids.

“The classes are really good fun and they help build their co-ordination skills,” said Sheryll, who has run the Swindon dance, drama and singing school for the past 17 years.

“It’s also good for confidence and it acts as a strong early building block.”

The school was up against many different theatre schools from all over the country and, although they didn’t win, their nomination earlier this year was the perfect reward for all the hard work.

“To be nominated is very special, but to get to the final is brilliant,” said Sheryll.

“It shows that the material we are working with is to a very high standard and that our methods are some of the best in the country.”

There are around 15 to 16 kids in each class because the teachers find smaller classes are a lot more conducive to the students’ learning.

“Feedback from parents has been great,” Said a proud Sheryll.

“The Mini Stages classes have been running since January and have proved very popular with parents who want to boost their child’s confidence from an early age."

The finalists were up against Disney's Lion King and Josef Weinberger's Shows for Young Performers, among others.

"I'm really proud of the work he do here and all the kids have been brilliant throughout the year," Sheryll added.

For more information about the Swindon School, located in Wanborough, log on to www.stagecoach.co.uk/swindon.