Chris Smale

Chris joined the School Governors in March 2026, having previously served on the Board of Trustees since 2017 and serving as the Chair of Governors for Royal School and Royal College Manchester during that time.

For nearly forty years Chris enjoyed a career in mainstream secondary education, but his interest in special educational needs and disabilities has been developing over an even greater period of time. He traces the start of it to the six months he spent as a volunteer in a primary school in Bedford, before going to university. A high percentage of pupils had additional needs, some of them quite complex, but this was in the period before classroom teachers were supported by teaching assistants. He became significantly more involved in the field of special needs, when his son was diagnosed with a complex neurological condition at the age of one.

First‐hand experience of the Portage Scheme in Hampton, Middlesex and special primary and secondary schools in the North West, combined with increased awareness of the bureaucratic difficulties frequently encountered by parents of children with disabilities, led to a desire to better understand issues make a contribution by standing for election as a parent governor at the special primary school attended by his son.