Meet the Director – Colm O’Byrne, ATC Language Schools, Dublin

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind starting your language centre?

I joined ATC Language Schools almost 20 years ago and having started in the language sector as a 17-year-old working in a summer school which was my first taste of the industry, I really enjoyed it.  I enjoyed the international community I enjoyed the positive impact that a language learning experience has on students of all ages – not just young learners.  It’s really got under my skin and it’s become part of my DNA and I’m very passionate about the experience that international students have when they come to study English and in our language centre.

ATC was founded in 1973 as a centre for young learners, and it has evolved over the years. When I joined Pia Greavy, who was the mother of my business partner, Ed Greavy, was the owner of the school and she developed it from being a centre for young learners with multiple junior summer centres into its first year round English language school on the Sea Front in Bray in 1995. Subsequently we opened a second year round school in Dublin City Centre and about 15 years ago.

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced when starting your business, and how did you overcome them?

I believe that we’re challenged differently every day, every week. The internationality brings so many different cultures to our language center and it’s important that we’re open to understanding and trying to find solutions for our students.  Students come from Latin America, the Middle East and from all across Europe. So that melting pot of cultures creates an environment where we are the common denominator. English is the common language for everybody and we have to help people around that journey.  There are various different challenges that come our way but we’ve a very dedicated team who communicate very effectively together and also with our with our student population. By listening to our students’ needs, our teachers’ needs and our admin teams’, we’re able to address any challenges as they arise.

How has your centre evolved since its inception?

As I mentioned, ATC was founded 51 years ago, a little before I was born, (but only by a couple of months) so it was a very different place back then!  Previously we were a centre for young learners, with homestay accommodation, now we have both residential & homestay. Also we now have multiple locations, the seafront in Bray and our year round school in a great location right in the center of Dublin City.

50% of our students would be young learners and 50% of our students are adults whereas at the beginning 100% of our students were young learners and it was primarily a Summer only center. nowadays we operate year round twelve months of the year.

Erasmus plus has become a very important part of our year-round centre and we welcome teachers from from all across Europe not just teachers but also staff working in universities, also on mobility projects.  It’s changed the student population was quite significantly and brought new markets, new ideas, new challenges as we are pushed to develop new content, and in conversation with our partner teachers from across Europe, and we’re listening to what they need, and our team here are working hard to meet those needs.

What values or principles guide your company’s operations?

So at ATC, we are owner managed.  I’m one of the owners and my business partner Ed Greevy is the other owner.  We operate a very open and flat management of schools. We don’t go in for a kind of hierarchical, we’re all very approachable.  The learner is the center of everything that we do.  Listening to the individual needs of a learner and the student remains our primary focus and ensuring that we meet their individual needs and then the collective needs of the school, the students in the school but also listening to the feedback of our team.

We operate an open-door policy and students have easy access to any member of the team, whether that’s in accommodation, in the academic management or whether it’s the school owners.  Students learn very well here because they feel relaxed immediately after they arrive, they recognise the open, warm and friendly environment in which they’re studying and particularly for short courses are so important because students are here for a week or two weeks, it’s important that they can feel at home very quickly and that comes from our values, it comes from the culture that we nurture within the company, within the school, within the language centre, but I think it’s really just important that we’re listening all the time and ready to react and evolve and respond.

How do you maintain a strong company culture and why is it important to you?

Strong company culture is important to us because it’s crucial that people are happy.  It’s important to us that people feel valued here, and not just that they feel valued but that they are actually valued. The open door policy in the office environment encourages open discussion within the whole team. Sharing of information and coming up with solutions and ideas to improve the workplace are all important elements of our culture.

I mentioned previously we have a very open, relaxed environment where everybody’s encouraged to contribute.  Everybody’s encouraged to share their ideas and to be part of what we’re trying to build.

How do you foster collaboration and teamwork within your company?

Collaboration and teamwork is particularly evident within the academic department and all areas of the school.   Our team are very good about sharing ideas and tips and resources with each other, and we’ve tried to bring that collaboration and teamwork into other areas of the language center, so from accommodation, sales, from operations, every aspect of it, and we encourage open communication.

We get teams together on a regular basis so that they can explain the challenges that they’re facing and maybe share ideas as how best to and how best to resolve them, and more recently become very aware of the importance of different teams getting together so the sales team has an understanding of what operations are dealing with and what accommodation are dealing with and what the academic team are dealing with so that everybody is on the same page.

How do you incorporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility within your business?

Interesting question it’s something that is a big area of our focus for us at the moment. It’s something that we will need to spend more time on and it is something that more and more needs to become a part of the business agenda. 

We’ve become more paperless than we were pre-pandemic. We have an online learning platform for all students.  All of our induction materials are all online. We have moved where possible to a lot of online tools and without losing that human connection that’s really important as well to the whole experience of studying here.

Interestingly from talking to other schools as well we hear interesting things about what other people are doing and certainly it’s something that’s very high in our attendance in terms of particularly in terms of our carbon footprint and exploring things like solar panels harvesting rainwater and various other projects but things that we plan to announce in the coming year.

With regards to CSR, we work with a partner in Brazil who send students here and we offer multiple scholarships a year to both Bray and Dublin.  These students come to us for four weeks and we provide the course and accommodation for learners who would never have the means to do this.  We’ve been doing for this for about four years and we’re delighted to be able to help. 

We also have some connections with local charities for refugees and asylum seekers, providing English language services on a charitable basis.

What do you personally consider to be the benefits and opportunities from Erasmus+ for participants and institutions?

The benefit for participants in institutions is, it takes boundaries and borders away. It allows for the exchange of ideas, the exchange of best practice, allows for learning and that’s a two-way street that’s not just for students that are coming here, the participants that are travelling to Ireland, but also for us as an institution and any partner institution that we have in Europe.

We learn from each other all the time and we learn from participants that come to us and they bring their ideas and their knowledge and we help them on their journey.  It’s such a wonderful opportunity and it’s so accessible.

What can participants hope to achieve by attending an Erasmus+ professional development course at your language training centre?

It’s a personalized learning journey.  It is a an opportunity to step outside of your own day to day and immerse yourself in an international environment where you as the students feel part of the centre and that all of our teachers every member of the team that you interact with is very aware of that and whether that’s one week, two weeks, three weeks invariably it’s a short-term programme, so we understand the importance of being really ready, prepared and honoured from the first moment that we interact with the participant.

Ireland is a great destination for international students of all ages and Dublin as the capital city of Ireland, is a vibrant capital city.  It’s full of energy, so much to do, theatres shopping and concerts all the time, restaurants, cafes, bars and that’s a really important part of it because you’ve got, you can be walking down the street and you hear music from a bar and you drop in for a beer or coca cola.

Our centre in Bray is right on the seafront.  Sometimes I think we take it for granted, school is directly facing the sea, it’s a stunning location.  We are lucky that we get to see the sea every day of the week, but for students from all across Europe that have never lived or stayed by the sea for any length of time it’s a unique experience.  It’s only 40 minutes by train from Dublin City Centre but offers you the opportunity for cliff walks, walks by the sea, sea swimming if you’re brave enough and walking distance to accommodation, both home stay and residential.

What your goals and aspirations for the future of the business?

So I think as I previously mentioned that the business is growing all the time.  It’s more important now than it’s ever been that we continue to listen to our students, to our young learners, and also teachers and Erasmus+ participants that come to the school. It is important to understand what the trends are, to understand what people are looking for, to understand what the future holds, and so that we can begin to prepare and be ready for what learners are going to need.  Clearly there’s the introduction of more technology in the classroom, but we need to also try to balance that out so that it’s not purely a tech experience at the same time. We’re developing programmes and writing syllabus specifically to meet the ever-changing needs of our students and our goal is that we remain relevant, we remain engaged and engaging in that whole process.

It’s a very exciting time for language learning, it’s a very exciting time for student mobility. Being close and connected to our students will ensure that we’re ready for the future. That is where we want to be and that’s what we aspire to do.

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