Our Team
Susan (Sue) Wernhoff
I was born in Nottingham, England in 1966. After leaving school in 1984, I went to university in Salford and Manchester to study primary teaching. I did my placement year at a primary school in Derbyshire, where I then spent another year teaching a class of 5-6 year olds. I then moved to London where I worked as a teacher of a pre-school class (4-5 year olds) in Ealing. After meeting my husband, who is German, I moved to Germany where I continued to work as a teacher, both with adults and children. Here I taught English as a foreign language as well as Business English. Before joining Pelita's Kindergarten, I worked as a substitute teacher at the primary school in Arnum (Hemmingen) for 5 years, teaching all subjects of the primary curriculum. I am very excited about the opportunity to work with young children again in my mother tongue and in a pre-school environment. It is very fulfilling to teach children a foreign language when they are at a very receptive age.
Kerstin Thrift
My name is Kerstin Thrift. I was born in Hanover in 1963 and studied psychology in Trier, Manchester and Bielefeld after my A-levels. After graduating, I worked as a research assistant at the University of Manchester and completed an internship in the psychosomatic department of the Hanover Medical School.
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internship in the psychosomatic department of the Hanover Medical School. After living in England for several years, I returned to Germany in 1990. I am married to an Englishman and our three sons grew up completely bilingual. My children are older now, but it is still important to me to have an occupation related to young children and parenting. I have gained a lot of experience in looking after and helping primary school children with their homework. Additionally, I have worked in adult education and in a translation agency. Some time ago I also completed a TEFL course specifically designed for young learners. Pelita's Kindergarten is a wonderful opportunity for me to work with young children again and I am looking forward to contributing to the implementation of this special pre-school concept.
Bridgit Brock
I was born in 1995 and grew up in a rural town in Missouri, a Midwestern state in America. After graduating from high school, I studied at Northwest Missouri State University. There I earned a bachelor's degree in Elementary Education and Special Education. After university, I worked as a special education teacher in a high school. My subjects were science and English. As a special education teacher, my main job was to modify and adapt learning materials so that students could be more successful. After two years at school, I made the decision to move to Germany in the summer of 2020 to be with my partner. We got married later in 2020. I am very excited to have the opportunity to work with young children at Pelita's English Kindergarten and help children learn English.
Pelita Roberts
I was born in 1961 in Akrotiri, Cyprus. I spent my school years in a private boarding school in the south of England because my parents were in Africa on business. I then went to beauty school in London and worked in Bahrain, Dubai and on cruise ships. In 1987 I moved to Hanover where I worked as an au pair for a year to learn the German language. From 1988 to 1995 I worked as a beautician.
I had my two sons in 1995 and 1999, and with bilingual education I quickly realised the advantages this offers children in life. In 2001 I started a language school for children. Working with children in English gave me a lot of new experiences. This gave me the idea and motivation to open Pelita's English Kindergarten in Hemmingen in 2007.