Governors

The construction of our Governing Body

Visit the Prospere Learning Trust website for more information on the Governing Body

Our Governor meeting attendance records are available in the Policies and Key Information section.

Click here to view our Governor meeting attendance records

Khalada Abdullah – Community Governor

Khalada works as a Senior Commissioning Manager for Manchester Health Care Commissioning. The aim of the organisation is to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Manchester. This role requires Khalada engage with a range of stakeholders to design and develop services that meet the needs of residents in Manchester. Khalada hopes that her knowledge, experience and understanding of local needs are skills that she can bring to the role as Governor at CHS South. 

Like all parents at CHS South, Khalada wants her children to receive a first class education, alongside the right opportunities to excel and be happy at school.  As CHS South is a new school, Khalada sees the current role of Governor as an exciting opportunity to help shape the future of the school and ensure all students there achieve the best outcome possible. She is delighted to have been given opportunity to work with the school to shape its role in delivering a high quality service to all students and developing its place in the local community. 

Khalada is looking forward to working with the school leadership team to ensure the school flourishes and goes onto receive its first rating from Ofsted. She also is keen to ensure that standards remain high as the school transitions from the temporary accommodation in to their new facility. 

Dr. Kristen Brill - Community Governor

Kristen has over ten years of experience working in the higher education sector at universities in the US and the UK. She is an Associate Professor in History and has published a monograph and two edited volumes on gender and nationalism in the nineteenth century. Currently, she is Head of History and Faculty Lead for Academic Quality and Enhancement (Humanities and Social Sciences) at Keele University. In these roles at Keele, she has strategic leadership in student success and widening access programmes.  

Kristen lives in Chorlton and is eager to contribute to curriculum design and development to enhance students’ learning experiences.

Damian Burton - Parent Governor

Damian has been Managing Director for 10 years at a Manchester-based carbon and energy management consultancy helping businesses and public sector organisations to better manage their climate impacts and energy costs. Previously, he worked as geologist in the mining and civil engineering sectors in the UK and Australia, before moving into government and then to United Utilities.  

He was previously a school governor for four years at Manley Park Primary School in Whalley Range, with responsibility as the Finance and Resources Lead. He has experience of managing and setting school budgets, and of successfully bidding for external funding streams to provide extra resources for schools. 

Damian is also a grassroots football coach with his U15s Girls' team at local club, FC Bluestar, playing in the South Manchester Girls League. 

Dr Teresa Farran - Chair of Governors

Teresa is an experienced and qualified teacher of Computing and Mathematics in FE and in Education in HE having spent more than 25 years in education. She is passionate about learning and making a difference to people’s life chances through education. This passion led to her role in initial teacher training and undertaking a doctorate in education. 

Teresa began her career in education as a part-time teacher of Computing and progressed into middle management and then senior management within which she has undertaken roles at four institutions. Currently she is the Deputy Principal at a mid-sized FE college with responsibility for the quality of the curriculum offer for school leavers, adults, HE and apprentices. 

Jane Goodfellow - Community Governor

Jane works as the SEND lead for Prospere Trust and is a Deputy Head at Grange School, a school for autistic students. She has worked in Education for over 20 years, much of this time has been working with students with SEND and their families. Jane has the National SENDCo Qualification and is looking forward to being able to use her experience to support the staff, students and families of CHS South.

Gemma McCorkell - Co-Opted Governor

As a Governor, Gemma feels she can bring a multifaced perspective to the table. With a professional role within the data and exam team in school, she possesses a keen understanding of educational systems and student performance metrics. Outside of work, Gemma is heavily involved in sports, serving as a coach for two local football teams and holding the position of vice-chair at the local Junior Rugby Club. This involvement not only highlights Gemma’s commitment to physical activity and teamwork but also showcases leadership qualities essential for effective governance.

In addition to this, Gemma has a personal connection to the school with her child being enrolled, this fuels an added dedication to ensuring the school’s success and student well-being. With a mixture of professional expertise, community engagement and personal investment, Gemma feels she can contribute significantly to the governance of the school.

Nicholas Morris – Staff Governor

Nick is currently a teaching assistant at CHS South, and he has worked in education since 1994, beginning in museum education and outreach in the Caribbean. There and in Europe, he lectured in art and art history during nearly thirty years while also teaching A-Level Art and Art History and practising as a freelance artist for nearly twenty years in central Germany. He moved to the UK in 2016. 

Nick has broad, international experience with a variety of schools and other teaching institutions.   He is deeply interested in schools as a reflection of the societies that they are embedded in and believes strongly that they therefore must play an active role in progressive social change. As a parent and grandparent, he looks forward to supporting the pupils, families and staff of CHS South as a governor. 

Walid Omara - Parent Governor

Walid is a father of 4 children in different education levels and with different needs: having a professional career with more than 30 years of experience in education, industry, academia and research. His vision is to support as well as challenge decision makers and leadership teams to play their full part serving community, young people and children. Our children and young people deserve a high quality safe engaging environment, to achieve their full potential; develop their talents and live happy and successful lives. These goals will be achieved through not only holding those who are responsible to account for their performance but also ensuring that money is well spent. As a parent, Walid will be happy to look at issues such as education, social care, disability and special educational needs. Those issues significantly affect many and their children by the impact of the decisions, policies and services of key agencies. 

Walid has been a governor for more than 15 years volunteering in different schools including primary, secondary, and special needs as well. He has been engaged and chaired several committees including Personal, Leadership, Management, Pupil, Curriculum and Finance. He has been appointed to be a safeguarding, SEN, Science-linked, data analysis governor as well as also being engaged in several panels including disciplinary, exclusion and head teacher/teacher/principal selection. Walid has supported schools during Ofsted inspection and during hard unprecedented Covid-19 circumstance. Additionally, has been elected as a chair of Manchester Governor Association which is supporting governors around Manchester by running several training workshops and organising governor’s conference and forums. 

To support his role as a governor, he has finished Governance Leadership Programme in addition to Governance Leader Development Programme and attended several courses and training workshops such as safer recruitment, Safeguarding, Child protection, Data analysis, Risk Management, Assessment and Evaluation, Extremism and Prevent, Pupil Premium, eSafety and Equality and inclusion. 

Dr Ali E Osman – Community Governor

Ali currently is employed by United Utilities for the future leader programme. During his career at UU has worked as a production manager, water network systems operator and range manager. He has a passion for raising the aspiration of young people and supporting them to focus on careers from a young age. As such has been involved in UUs apprentice programmes and is the enterprise advisor for Loreto collage. 

Prior to working at UU Ali studied chemical engineering at The University of Manchester and went on to complete and PhD. This was due to the love and drive Ali has towards education. During this time Ali also was running his own small company. Through all his experiences Ali has become a very well rounded individual with skills in data analytics, people management, incident management, innovation, budgeting and strategy.  

Abigail Reid – Community Governor

Abigail is a journalist and teacher. She has several years’ experience in the field of journalism and communications.  Her writing career includes roles as a Business Writer, Travel Writer, Marketing Manager and PR Coordinator for a Women’s Action Forum based in inner city Manchester. After leaving her post at the Forum, she served on the Board for two years. Most recently, she was a lecturer of journalism at a college of further education. 

As a Teach First (TF)Ambassador, Abigail aligns herself with TF values, which include making the education system work for every child regardless of their background. She is also passionate about teaching literacy and in 2021, with assistance from Arts Council England, launched ‘Rock Paper Write’ – facilitating creative writing workshops for children. 

Abigail is married with two children, one of whom attends CHS South. The family have been foster carers since 2019 and this has enabled them to understand the feelings of children who have experienced crisis and trauma in their lives. She is keen to explore how forest school learning can impact upon both learning and emotional development and is currently training to become a forest school leader. 

Abigail’s daughter has thrived at CHS South, and she is enthused about being a part of the CHS South family and helping to ensure that every child’s educational journey is fulfilling and that they reach their full potential. 

Elliott Tollast – Staff Governor

Elliott is currently a Teacher of Maths, with a teaching and learning responsibility at CHS South and has worked at the school since 2019. Alongside this role, Elliott is also one of the NEU union representatives and has previously worked in IT and Tech, as well as completing a master’s degree in Maths from the university of Manchester, giving him a variety of skills and experiences suitable for the role. 

Elliott firmly believes in the values of the school and trust and is very invested in the success of the school. As a governor, he aims to help give back to the school and see it grow in a positive way. Through his time as a teacher and rep, Elliott has worked successfully with a variety of stakeholders, and is able to negotiate, communicate and quality assure on various topics and problems. But a core tenet of his beliefs, is that the staff and students are the cornerstone of any school, and that as governor, Elliott will be a champion for all staff and students as the school looks forward to the future. 

To contact the CHS South Governing body, please email CHS South and mark it ‘FAO Chair of Governors’.

Contact Us