Claire | First Aid Instructor in Christchurch

What Do Miniature Houses Have to Do With First Aid Training?

If you've done a course with City First Aid in Christchurch recently, there's a good chance Claire has taught you.

Claire is calm and measured, unflappable and experienced. Vicky described Claire as a tree. Her knowledge, experience, creativity, and calm are deeply rooted, and she shares them generously with those around her.

What you might not know is that outside the classroom, she creates miniature houses, writes songs, and sews fantastical costumes for her family.

Three very different hobbies that, on paper, have nothing to do with medicine or first aid, and everything to do with why she's so good at teaching it.

From Emergency Medicine to First Aid Instruction

Claire came to us after recently retiring from emergency medicine. Her background shows up the moment she starts talking. She doesn't just tell you what to do in a given situation. She explains why, drawing on real situations she's seen and methodically worked through.

I love Claire's phrase, "it's a lot of waiting around", when she is explaining providing care to people in need.

Help isn't always instant. Sometimes you've done what needs doing, and your job is to stay with someone, keep watching, keep reassuring them, and wait for more help to arrive.

One of our regular learners mentioned in recent feedback that they had been coming to first aid training for 10 years and called Claire's class "the best training day" they'd had yet.

Another commented that "having a medical background behind the teaching made the content more engaging, more relevant, and easier to actually learn from".

That same care shows up in Claire's hobbies, even if it's not obvious at first.

Building a miniature house is an exercise in patience. Getting the proportions right, making sure every small piece serves the whole, and not rushing the parts that matter most.

Writing a song is an exercise in clarity. Finding the words that convey the right meaning and getting rid of anything that gets in the way of the message.

Claire recently wrote a song for our team so we could learn an assessment tool more easily. It was effective and hilarious.

And then there are the costumes. A family visit, six different people, six different costumes, and a deadline. That takes creativity, adaptability, and a fair bit of calm problem-solving.

Watch Claire teach, and you'll see all three instincts at work.

She slows down for the parts that need slowing down. She explains and demonstrates the reasoning behind the steps instead of making you guess or listening to a boring lecture.

That same creativity of her hobbies shows up in the classroom too. Claire doesn't rely on one way of explaining something. She'll find whatever angle, story, piece of old pipe or analogy gets a concept to land for class.

And she does it gently, which turns out to matter more than people expect when the subject is keeping someone alive.

What Christchurch Students Say About Learning First Aid with Claire

Our learners probably say it best:

"She communicates very well and is very gentle on us, which made our course much easier to understand."

"Very precise in explaining each topic. Very patient and encouraging, using life experiences to explain situations."

"Claire is amazing, she is helpful and takes the time to ensure you understand what you are doing. She is so lovely, she is patient and is a great teacher. Grateful to have learnt from you Clair!! I will remember you and all you have taught me!"

What comes through, again and again, isn't just that people understood the content.

It's that they felt safe enough to ask questions, to get things wrong in the room, and to actually learn.

That's not an accident. It's the same attention to detail she brings to a half-built dollhouse roof or an unfinished verse, just aimed at people instead of miniatures.

We're thrilled Claire chose to bring her experience to City First Aid, and very glad to have her as part of our team.

If you'd like to learn first aid the way Claire teaches it, you can book a Christchurch first aid course with us today.