Meet Claire, Christine, Andy and Calum – our newest Riversdown trainers!  Some of you will have already had the pleasure of being taught by them, and you will know what great additions they are to the team.  Our trainers are all native speakers and come from diverse areas of the UK: Claire and Christine are from Wales, Callum from Edinburgh and Andy from England.  This benefits students by giving them different accents and, also, styles of teaching.

All our trainers meet the British Council standard for qualifications, and many exceed these.  Claire and Andy have experience working as Directors of Studies for large organisations.  All have taught internationally (Calum also teaches Business English in Madrid) and have vast experience of teaching English as a Foreign Language. For example, Andy has been teaching for more than 30 years. Having started out as a classroom teacher in London, he spent 7 very happy years working in Italy as a Business English teacher before returning to the UK in 2020.  Claire also has over 30 years experience and holds a Masters in Linguistics.  She has prepared students for the IELTS and Cambridge exams and has a particular interest in the use of AI in language learning.

All of our new trainers are also residents at Riversdown, so students benefit from speaking English with them at breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as enjoying social activities together.  We are fortunate to have such a talented group who have wide-ranging interests and some hidden talents – including cooking and writing/performing music!