Chris Smale

Chris Smale

Chris became the Chair of the Board of Directors in September 2021 after joining the Board in January 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 the pupils had additional needs, some of them quite complex, but this was in the period before classroom teachers were supported by teaching assistants. However, he became significantly more involved in the field of special needs, when his son was, at the age of one, diagnosed with a complex neurological condition. First‐hand experience of the Portage Scheme in Hampton, Middlesex and subsequently of 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 understand at least some of the issues better and to try to make a contribution by standing for election, initially, as a parent governor at the special primary school attended by his son.

He believes that his years of experience as Chair of Governors, first at that school and more recently at the Royal School and Royal College Manchester, have helped prepare him for his new role at Seashell, although COVID‐19 and the undoubted pressures on public finances in the coming years are just two things that demonstrate the importance of building adaptability and resilience into the organisation.

There is much to look forward to at Seashell, with the building of the new school and the whole transformation project, but our children, young adults and their families are ‐ and must always be –at the heart of everything we do.