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Guest Character Profiles > Shannon Laing Francesca Waters

Shannon Laing 2022

After Aubrey Laing started fires around Erinsborough High, in an attempt to get Zara Selwyn expelled, she ended up being expelled herself when the truth came out, then after being bullied at her new school, found herself being home schooled by her grandmother, Shannon. Concerned that she was out of her depth, Shannon went to Erinsborough High and spoke to teacher Jane Harris, who was understandably reluctant to help, but after Zara pointed out that everyone deserved a second chance, Jane offered Shannon some assistance with materials and out-of-hours tuition. She also explained that Aubrey had a piece of assessed coursework due for her physics module, but it would need to be filed later that day if it was going to count towards her mark. Though Shannon claimed that she had understood, it was a couple of days before she turned up with the coursework for Jane, insisting that Jane hadn't mentioned a deadline during their last meeting. Later that day, Shannon told Jane that she'd emailed the education board, hoping that the couple of extra days wouldn't affect Aubrey's mark, and continuing to insist that Jane had never given her that deadline.

As Jane arranged for Aubrey and Shannon to do some work with teacher Curtis Perkins, himself hard of hearing and using a cochlear implant, he started to notice that Shannon was missing details during conversations. However, when he later approached her and asked if she'd ever had any trouble with her hearing, she became very defensive, insisting that there wasn't a problem. However, when they all met again a few days later on Power Road, Shannon was almost hit by a car that she didn't hear coming, later admitting to Curtis that she knew she had a problem, but didn't want to admit it. Curtis insisted that there were things that could be done to help her to live her life to the full, just like him. But with Shannon struggling to find somewhere she felt comfortable getting her hearing tested, Curtis offered to go with her to Specsavers, where she found out that she would need hearing aids, hopeful that it was going to change her life. Realising that she'd been making her, and Aubrey's, life more difficult by ignoring the problem, she apologised to her granddaughter and they agreed to make a fresh start.