Governors

Governors

Helen Crabtree
Chair of Governors

Helen has been a School Governor in Oldham since 1992, initially as a Parent Governor at Foxdenton Special School and then as a Community Governor at Kingfisher Special School. She took on the role of Chair of Trustees at Kingfisher Learning Trust In September 2016. In 2020/1 she chaired the Interim Governing Body at Medlock Valley and for the present continues to Chair the Medlock Valley Local Governing Body. Helen lives in Bury and is married with one daughter. Prior to retirement in 2008 she was a lecturer in the Business School at Salford University for 17 years, teaching Quality Management and Organisation Behaviour.

Zaira Cook
Governor

Zaira has been the Headteacher at Horton Mill Community Primary School since September 2016. Prior to this role, she worked as a teacher in Rochdale since 2003. Zaira has a passion for languages and is fluent in Spanish and Italian. Zaira has one teenage daughter and a very energetic cocker spaniel, Holly.

Eileen Arthur
Governor

Eileen has worked in Education in the Oldham area for the whole of her career. She taught in Primary Schools before becoming a Deputy Head and a Primary Head. In 2002, Eileen was appointed as an Adviser to Oldham School Improvement Service and later became Principal Primary Adviser. The role involved leading and deploying a team of professionals to support and challenge primary schools and leadership teams. Since her retirement she has engaged in school commissioned work in a number of Primary Schools. Most recently, she was asked by Oldham LA to train and quality assure a group of experienced Heads to act as School Improvement Partners in Oldham Primary Schools. Eileen is married with two sons and four young grandchildren. Eileen enjoys music, theatre visits, travel, working with young people in church and spending time with family and friends.

Lisa Needham
Governor

Lisa Needham has worked in mainstream primary schools in Oldham for over 30 years. She has had over 15 years of Executive Leadership within two MATs (Focus Trust and now Kingfisher Learning trust). She led Roundthorn Primary School through two Ofsted inspections receiving Satisfactory in October 2007 and then Outstanding in 2011 and Coppice Primary School taking the school from Serious Weaknesses to receiving a judgement of Good in 2015. Lisa’s leadership is impactful in terms of academic outcomes and personal development and wellbeing of all learners including staff and parents. She is now leading the rapid journey of improvement at Medlock Valley Primary School.
As Deputy CEO Lisa is the strategic lead for Educational Excellence. She has a strong moral imperative and a very clear vision that ensures that children receive the very best education. She is driven by a commitment that all children, regardless of their starting point, will learn more and achieving more.
As an executive coach, she is passionate about developing and preparing current and future leaders to bring about positive and impactful improvements within and beyond their settings. She is a dedicated and hardworking system leader (LLE and Executive Leader) who strongly believes that improvements come about through collaboration. Lisa was a Commissioner on the Oldham Education and Skills Commission, helped with the development of the Oldham Partnership Board and sits on the Oldham Primary Heads Executive. Lisa is also a Trustee of The Oak Trust.

Kalpna Bhatt
Parent Governor

Tichapondwa Soriwa
Parent Governor

I am honoured to be a parent governor for Medlock Valley. I am very approachable and friendly. I am a father of three children and my older daughter has had a good experience at Medlock Valley before she started her high school. My son is also getting support from school, and he is settled at Medlock Valley. My work experience involves vast working experience in different authorities with children and their families as a social worker. I also work with senior lecturers to do lessons/sessions in Child Protection and Thresholds of intervention at Salford University for the BA student social workers. I have also experience of volunteering to work with the elderly, unaccompanied children, women/men fleeing domestic violence and homeless people. I believe I have transferable skills that I would use for the benefit of our children’s school, Medlock Valley Primary.       

Beth Kerfoot-Roberts
Governor

Governor Visits

The Local Governing Board has delegated responsibility from Kingfisher Learning Trust for a variety of areas including Teaching and Learning and Pupil Outcomes.  Because Governing Boards have a statutory responsibility to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the school and its curriculum, Governors need to know what progress is being made towards objectives set out in the School Improvement  Plan (SIP); visiting classrooms can help to support this process. Ofsted inspections assume that Governors know the strengths and weaknesses of the school.  This depends on Governors assessing performance data presented to them by the Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) in the context of an understanding of what happens in the classroom. It is also important to Ofsted that the Governing Board makes an impact on school improvement, supported by visiting school to see it in operation; being aware of standards and progress are important aspects of this crucial role.

Governors are encouraged to visit school regularly, not to assess standards but to visit lessons in order to:

  • Realise the implementation and effectiveness of the policy framework
  • See what the values and vision look like in practice
  • Appreciate and understand the work of the staff (teachers and support staff) and how the pupils are learning
  • Be aware of the response of pupils to their learning
  • Be aware of resource issues
  • Be able to ask appropriate questions and hold appropriate discussions with the professionals
  • Understand, as fully as possible, the meaning of the results of monitoring reported to them.

Governor Visits