About Us

My Story

Hi there! My name is Phil, I'm from Manchester and I live in the beautiful city of Madrid. I am the founder of Creatro, an English/Drama extracurricular activity for students to improve their acting abilities, social skills and overall confidence using English. I am passionate about enriching children's education and I understand that creativity, teamwork and improving their English level are all fundamental aspects of a child's learning.

I fell in love with the English language when I was 16 years old studying my A-Levels at College. I found English Literature fascinating, so I decided to do an English Degree at the University of Liverpool. Upon graduating I knew that I wanted to live abroad and learn Spanish, so when I left Liverpool I decided to do a TEFL course (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) so that I could teach English abroad. I officially moved to Madrid in September 2014 and immediately fell in love with the city, the people and the way of life here. I got a job teaching English to High School students at Colegio Sagrádo Corazón and two years later I moved to Colegio San Patricio ("the best school in Spain" - El Mundo 2022), where I worked for 7 years as a class tutor and English/Drama teacher . Along the way I started to explore my own creative writing more seriously, firstly with Poetry and then with Prose. I self-published my 1st Book in 2018 and my 2nd Book in 2021.

My favourite subject at school was always Drama. There was something about acting that I found unique. It was creative, it was fun, and you could lose yourself into all these characters. I have been a huge fan of Cinema since I was a little boy, and there was always something inside of me that wanted to work in the field of Drama when I grew up. At college I studied Theatre Studies as one of my A-Levels, where I learnt more about the art of acting and creating theatre for the stage. I managed to achieve an A* grade, which in turn landed me a role as an actor in a play in Manchester at the RNCM (Royal Northern College of Music). Even though I studied English when I went to University, I continued to act in a Theatre Production there, but this was to be the last time I acted on a stage myself.

Creatro

Whilst working at my first school in Madrid (Colegio Sagrádo Corazón), I was asked by the head of the English department if I wanted to direct a film with students in their last 2 years of High School. I seized the opportunity and throughout that year, I created and directed an original 40-minute film with a team of 100 incredible teenagers. It was this particular project which helped me get hired by Colegio San Patricio as an English and Drama teacher. The school wanted me to create and direct original Stage-Plays with children aged 8-12. Throughout my time there, I created 5 original Stage-Plays, 2 Documentaries and directed Disney classics such as The Jungle Book, Aladdin and Peter Pan. My proudest achievement was creating and directing 2 different original Stage-Plays in 2019, both of which included 80 characters/students. We performed these Plays to a live audience at the Teatro Nicolás Salmerón.

I loved being a classroom teacher and tutor for many years, but I knew deep down that my true passion lay not just in teaching, but in Creativity and Theatre. I had built up a portfolio of 8 original creative projects that I had (alongside the students) created from scratch and then performed to an audience. So I started to think seriously about starting up my own business back in 2020. A few years later and Creatro was born. In our first year we created 5 Stage-Plays at 4 different schools - Madrid Montessori, Colegio San Patricio, Colegio Madrid and Escuela IDEO.

This is the story of myself and my business. I love what I do, I am passionate about the stories we create, and I'm always so excited to start a variety of new projects with my enthusiastic Creatro students!