Students and staff at St Ivo Academy welcomed Joanne Clifton, winner of BBC One’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, to their school this week for a dance workshop.

Joanne Clifton had just finished touring as Princess Fiona in ‘Shrek’ The Musical and is taking a month off before her next show.

Her first day off in a month meant putting students and staff through their paces at a special dance class organised by Lindsay McAdam, head of dance at St Ivo.

The lucky students were eager to meet Joanne and hear about her Strictly win.

She also spoke about how her career has progressed from being a professional dancer, a world champion, and now as a star of the West End as an actress and singer.

Students and staff were able to hold the glitterball from her 2016 win with Ore Oduba and see the actual cue card that announced Joanne and Ore as winners.

Joanne had under an hour to get students up to speed dancing her winning number, to ‘Runaway Baby’ by Bruno Mars.

She started with a quick warm up for the 50 students from years 7 to 13 who ranged from beginner to experienced dancers, before teaching them sections of the dance.

Within 40 minutes, they had learnt most of the routine that Joanne and Ore performed in their iconic Strictly win. 

Jasmine and Emma, Year 10 students who took part, said: “It was really challenging and Joanne’s energy was amazing.

“We were really tired and had a great time!”

Joanne Clifton said: “I was so impressed with such talented kids. They learnt my ‘Strictly’ routine so quickly and it was so fun to teach them my winning dance.

“The staff at St Ivo really threw themselves into my choreography too. Thank you for dancing with me St Ivo.”

Tony Meneaugh, principal at St Ivo, said: “We had so much fun learning with Joanne. Thank you so much to her for visiting us and to Lindsay, our head of dance, for organising it.

“We’ve certainly got some tips for the upcoming Prom and our Ivolution show in the Autumn.”