meet the team

rachel kenning

DTLLS, DDE(ISTD), LTA MTC Dip

Meet Rachel: a dynamic, accomplished & experienced dance teacher, choreographer and founder of Tot Bop; a fun, funky and imaginative dance programme for children aged 1-9. Mum of two, she lives with her husband & kiddies in Bedfordshire. Rachel has over 20 years teaching experience to children and adults of all ages and is passionate about inspiring children and making dance accessible to all.

Dance has always played a huge part in Rachel’s life. Rachel was lucky enough to be inspired at an early age by an incredible teacher, setting the stage for a lifetime of dance.

She went on to train for 3 years at the prestigious Laine Theatre Arts, gaining both performing and teaching qualifications, before embarking on a wonderful and fulfilling professional performing career in dance, performing in a variety of musical theatre and jazz dance productions in the UK and worldwide. Rachel then transitioned into professional choreography and eventually teaching.

Rachel’s teaching career began initially with workshops in between performing and choreographic contracts. In 2006, she took a full-time position as a jazz dance teacher on the dance faculty at Tring Park School For The Performing Arts, where she remained for 12 years, teaching jazz and tap to 8-19 year olds. While there, she furthered her teaching qualifications, honed her teaching and choreographic skills and worked among a team of hugely skilled and inspiring, like minded dance professionals, developing additional skills such as management and course writing/development.

When babies made an appearance in Rachel’s life, she decided to use her skills in a different way and developed a programme for younger children that could deliver the fundamentals of dance in a way that inspires a lifelong love of movement, while also giving children the educational building blocks needed to start their dance journey. Tot Bop was born!

Since it’s humble beginnings, Tot Bop has grown to deliver in-person classes to thousands of families, provide classes for educational settings such as nurseries, preschools & schools and is an online resource to parents/carers nationwide.

tia marney

Tia trained at Jackie Palmers Academy and went on to develop her training into the professional performing world, performing on stage, music video and tv/film.

Tia has many years of experience teaching children aged 1-12 years, teaching confidence in social skills through the means of performing arts and dance and finds nothing more rewarding than making a child’s day by filling it with fun and helping them express themselves creatively.

Tia is also a Mummy herself and loves having a boogie at home as well as with the children she entertains!

amy russell

Amy started dancing at the age of 6 learning ballet, tap and jazz. At the age of 11 she moved over to street dance and completely fell in love with it. In her late teens she performed all around the country in venues such as the Royal Albert Hall.

Amy then toured UK Arenas for four years performing at the O2, Manchester arena, Birmingham arena and Sheffield arena in front of 10s of thousands of people each night.  During this time, she was dance captain.

Amy’s passion then became about giving young people the fire for dance and the opportunities she had in her life. She has been a dance teacher now for 7 years focusing on street dance: hip hop, popping, locking, house and breaking.

sophie cleaver

Sophie trained at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts for seven years and then went on to continue her training at Emil Dale Academy where she gained a BA (hons) Degree in Musical Theatre. Throughout her time at Emil Dale, Sophie trained extensively in multiple dance disciplines such as jazz, ballet, tap, and commercial.

Sophie also has lots of experience teaching young children musical theatre, singing, dancing and acting in various teaching and assisting roles. Sophie loves creating a fun and energetic environment to allow the children to express themselves whilst learning and developing skills.

natasha rolt

Natasha, whilst not a professionally trained dancer has always loved to dance from a young age where she did disco dancing lessons! Now a mum of two, she was first introduced to Tot Bop with her daughter in 2016 who still remembers the moves and music and has gone onto enjoy her grades in ballet.

When Natasha is not being a social butterfly and dancing around her kitchen, she is working away behind the scenes of Tot Bop updating the website, processing registrations, and answering any questions our parents, grandparents and carers might have.

With a background in events, along with experience in running a small business, Natasha is knowledgeable, very organised, and efficient and prides herself in offering a very warm welcome, excellent customer service and always with a smile.

sophie eastop-scopes

Sophie is our ‘go to’ social media guru. With over 15 years experience working across multiple industries in admin, social media and marketing, Sophie supports the Tot Bop team with all things social media and general marketing. She was also hugely integral in the early stages of setting up Tot Bop Online at the beginning of lockdown. We have so much to thank her for and feel hugely fortunate that she is part of our team.