Meet Megan…
Child Actress, West End Leading Lady, TV star, Principal, Teacher, Parent
Everything you’ll find inside Showing Up comes from lived experience.
Not just mine.
My family’s.
Because long before I became a professional performer, a teacher, a school principal or a parent myself, I was simply a child who loved performing with two parents trying to figure it all out as they went along.
And honestly?
We didn’t have a clue what we were doing.
We were the family looking for answers…
I grew up in Staines-upon-Thames and attended local state schools.
Like many children who fall in love with performing, I joined a local performing arts school and quickly realised it was more than a hobby. It was where I felt most like myself.
Eventually, I secured a place at the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School, one of the UK’s most recognised schools for young performers.
It was an incredible opportunity.
It was also incredibly expensive.
My parents weren’t from the industry. They didn’t have contacts. They didn’t know how agents worked. They didn’t understand auditions, licensing or contracts.
They were learning everything in real time.
Looking back now, there were funding routes we didn’t understand.
Questions we didn’t know to ask.
Like so many performing arts families, we were making huge decisions with limited information.
To make it work, my parents remortgaged our home.
They took in boarders from Sylvia Young.
They made sacrifice after sacrifice because they believed in me and wanted to give me every opportunity possible.
Showing Up exists because I know there are families doing exactly the same thing today.
Growing up in the industry
Whilst training at Sylvia Young, I was also working professionally.
I experienced the reality of the industry from a very young age.
The auditions.
The rejections.
The uncertainty.
The excitement of getting the call.
The pressure that comes with trying to balance education, training and professional work.
I landed one of the biggest opportunities of my career, in the CBBC drama series The Sparticle Mystery and then at 17 I secured a leading role in London’s West End in Dreamboats and Petticoats.
From the outside, it probably looked like everything was going to plan.
But careers rarely follow a straight line.
Like many performers, I experienced setbacks, injuries, missed opportunities and periods where work simply wasn’t there.
I worked part-time jobs alongside auditions and performing work.
I learned that talent alone isn’t enough.
Success in this industry requires resilience, perspective and the ability to keep moving forwards when things don’t go your way.
Those lessons have shaped everything I teach today.
Seeing The Industry From Every Angle
Over the years, I’ve experienced the performing arts industry from almost every perspective possible.
I’ve been the child performer.
The teenager navigating agents and auditions.
The professional actor.
The drama school student.
The teacher.
The licensed chaperone.
The principal.
And now, perhaps most importantly, the parent.
Each stage has given me a different understanding of what young performers need and what parents are often left trying to figure out on their own.
Building The School I Wish We’d Had?
Following Covid, I founded the Megan Jones School of Performing Arts with a simple goal:
To create the kind of performing arts environment I would have wanted as a child and the kind of support I know my parents would have valued. Five years later, more than 250 children attend classes every week.
The school has grown into an award-winning performing arts community, recognised as Runnymede Business of the Year 2025.
Alongside running the school, I hold professional teaching qualifications and accreditations including RAD, IDTA and Acro Arts.
But if I’m honest, the qualifications aren’t the reason parents come to me for advice.
They come because they know I’ve lived it.
Why Showing Up Exists?
Every week, parents ask me the same questions.
How do agents work?
Should my child audition?
Are we spending money in the right places?
How do we know if they’re ready?
What happens after performing arts college?
How do we keep them safe?
And every time I answer those questions, I find myself thinking the same thing.
I wish someone had explained all of this to my parents.
Showing Up is the resource my family never had.
The guide I wish my mum and dad had been given when they first stepped into a theatre school waiting room.
It’s everything I’ve learned from a lifetime in the industry, shared honestly and openly.
Because talent shouldn’t depend on insider knowledge.
And parents shouldn’t have to navigate this journey alone.