Tom Makin is one of those lucky people who has made a career out of something he loves. He took up juggling at the age of 18 and soon saw how he could turn a hobby into a full-time job.

Mr Makin said: “I met some people who were doing performances in nightclubs for agents and I saw where it could lead to.

“It offered lots of fun and well-paid work sometimes with the possibility of working abroad for different agents.”

Over the past 18 years, he has worked in circuses, schools, nightclubs and at events ranging from those in the corporate world to children’s parties.

But his talents aren’t limited to simply juggling.

He explained: “I built a puppet show with five-foot puppets of aliens and I’ve performed with that all around Europe and Turkey.”

He has appeared in front of royalty and his company, eclipseArts also did a fireshow for the 2012 Olympic committee.

In recent years he has been running circus skills workshops, particularly for children.

“Scientific evidence has shown juggling and the other skills we teach are an excellent way of developing co-ordination, learning capacity, and are some of the few activities that integrate both hemispheres of the brain at the same time,” he said.

Now, together with fellow performance artists Paul Eagle and Andy Fowler, he is setting up a circus school for children.

Mr Makin had thought of the idea before, but it was when he moved to Oxford more than a year ago and met like-minded people such as Mr Eagle, that he decided it was time to make his dream a reality.

“There is nothing like that around here,” he said. “There are two juggling groups in Oxford. One of them is at the university, so it is aimed at students and the other one is on the Cowley Road, and that is mostly adults.”

He has had a lot of support from parents for the idea. “They all seem to say that it would be nice to have something like this around here for children,” he explained.

“It helps them to develop and find out about new things they maybe wouldn’t get a chance to try otherwise in normal life.”

It also helps children who have negative ideas about learning.

Mr Eagle said: “Some children develop a mental block, because that has been their first experience, so when they come and they learn to play, maybe these mental blocks go.

“Then they are ready to be reintroduced to these other ways of learning.”

Both men see the circus school as growing out of the work they have already done with children.

Mr Eagle, 35, uses dance and drumming as therapy. He has worked in nurseries, children’s homes and is currently at Oxford and Cherwell Valley college part-time, where he works with autistic children, supporting them both educationally and emotionally as a learning support assistant.

Mr Makin, also 35, works part-time for the Government’s Creative programme, designed to develop the skills of young people through creative innovation, challenging how they work and experimenting with new ideas.

He works with children who have been excluded from mainstream education.

“Juggling and teaching new skills takes them out of their problems,” he said.

“It lifts them out of the role model they have created for themselves and starts breaking down lots of barriers.”

Both men clearly enjoy performing and working with young people.

“It is the most fun when you see the children developing their skills and gaining from it; becoming more confident and enjoying meeting their friends,” Mr Makin said.

He also loves performing, although he is not sure why. “Maybe it’s the rhythms, maybe it’s the adrenaline and energy you get from performing in front of a party of people, all enjoying what you’re doing and what you’ve made,” he said.

He and Mr Eagle want to share that love of performance and the sense of community it creates. “I see the Oxford Circus School as working towards a performance at the end of a year, or a term or through holiday clubs,” he said.

Although he is running a series of circus skills workshops at Brightwell, which he sees as showing the outreach potential of the Circus School, Mr Makin is looking for a permanent base at a school or community hall in Oxford.

Meanwhile, he and Mr Eagle are working towards a big launch on July 5 at the Cowley Road mini-festival and would be happy to hear from anyone who wants to take part whether as compére, performer, workshop tutor or costumed walkabout performer.