Inset Leaders' Profiles

Diane Spradbery (Edexcel)

Diane Spradbery  has over thirty years teaching experience, in both multi-ethnic urban and rural secondary schools. For a number of years she worked as an Advanced Skills Teacher (AST) and was a member of the team responsible for writing the New Agreed Syllabus in Norfolk.  Diane has considerable experience supporting other teachers: through her work as an AST; as a Local Authority mentor for Newly Qualified Teachers; and as a member of the University of East Anglia’s Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) team.  She has worked with Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) on raising standards across Key Stages 3 and 4 in Religious Studies and has provided training for teachers of GCSE Religious Studies throughout England and in Dubai.  Diane has worked as an examiner for many years and was the Principal Examiner for Edexcel GCSE in Religious Studies Unit D. She is now the Principal Examiner for Unit 11: Islam and is the author of teachers’ guides and student books for this unit and for Unit 4 (Religion and Life Based on a Study of Islam) published by Pearson.

Gareth Byrne (Edexcel)

Gareth Byrne is Edexcel’s Subject Advisor for ICT.  Following a role as a Programmer/Systems Analyst in the private sector, Gareth worked as an ICT teacher and head of department for over 10 year. This role involves supporting schools and colleges throughout the UK in their delivery of all Edexcel’s IT qualifications.
This portfolio covers over 30 qualifications including A Level, GCSE, BTEC and DiDA.

Israr Khan (Hamd House School, Birmingham)

Israr Khan is the founding proprietor of Hamd House School and is presently the Acting Head. He is a Lead Inspector and this is his tenth year of conducting inspections in a wide range of independent and state schools. He was originally a specialist in and an inspector of mathematics. He has wide ranging teaching experience from Early Years through to Post 16 education. He brings the rare experience of having seen the inspection process as a proprietory headteacher as well as a Lead Inspector and this makes his approach to training very practical.  He has been involved for some time in providing support to schools as well as training headteachers and senior management in improving the quality of all areas of their provision. He has recently been involved in training new inspectors and has also mentored a number of new inspectors. In addition to this he brings a wide range of experiences and skills outside the world of education that provide invaluable depth to the insight he provides to delegates in his training sessions.   

Jahangir Akbar (Madani High School, Leicester)

Jahangir Akbar is currently the Head of Mathematics at Madani High School. Prior to this Jahangir worked as Lead Teacher of Science in the school of the year, Denbigh High School. He has completed the NCSL's Outstanding Teacher and Leadership Pathways programmes. Jahangir is a well known trained School Improvement Partner and successfully works with numerous Independent schools across the country. As a successful ex-Head teacher, Jahangir's passion and specialism is School Improvement, particularly in schools which have been judged by OFSTED as inadequate. Support to school ranges from action planning to conducting audits. He supports many new schools across the country and mentors QTS candidates via AMSUK and University of Gloucestershire. Judged as an outstanding practitioner he delivers national and tailored INSETS and CPD to schools and individuals. Jahangir continues to support numerous schools and is also an active Executive Committee member of AMSUK.

Khaled Miah (AMS UK)

Khaled Miah has 10 Years teaching experience having taught a wide range of subjects including Maths, ICT, Science, English, RE, and Economics at Key Stages 2, 3, 4 and 5 and has been Lead Teacher in Mathematics and ICT at Denbigh High School successfully supporting an application for the BECTA Star Mark Level 2 and was shortlisted for the BECTA Award for Secondary Schools in 2007. Previously the headteacher of Al-Hikmah Girls School in Luton the past three years, Khaled has also been Head of ICT at Denbigh High School, Luton and Head of Maths Faculty at the Francis Combe School, Watford. He is also an AMS UK School Improvement Partner and has delivered INSETs for the AMS over the past four years supporting current schools and helping to start new ones.

Michele Messaoudi

Michèle Messaoudi is an independent education consultant trained to inspect maintained and independent schools. She has held senior management positions in schools across five key stages in both the maintained and independent sectors and has experience of inspecting nursery, primary, secondary schools and sixth form colleges. Her particular areas of subject expertise are in English, modern foreign languages and EAL. She has worked as an Adviser to the DCSF on the Remodelling the Workforce Agenda and Every Child Matters and the KS3 Minority Ethnic Achievement Project.

Mustafa Styer (AMS UK)

Mustafa Styer is an experienced classroom practitioner with several years experience of teaching at primary and secondary levels, including roles such as acting head and school curriculum co-ordinator. He has studied a number of traditional Islamic Sciences in Syria and Jordan over a period of five years including Aqidah, Fiqh, Usul Al Fiqh, Tazkiyah / Tarbiyah and Islamic Psychology and Quranic Studies. Mustafa obtained a teaching qualification and completed his induction and placement at Islamia Primary School in North London. He completed his MA in Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment at the Institute of Education in London. Previously he has also developed a Nasheed Scheme and a PSHE/Ct Scheme for AMS UK. Mustafa is currently in the third year of a DPhil at Oxford University studying Islamic Tarbiyyah and Psychology.

Rehana Shaker (Ayesha Community School)

Rehana has over twenty years of experience working with children of all ages.  She qualified as a secondary school teacher from the Institute of Education and research, Punjab University Lahore, Pakistan.  On coming to Britain she first trained as an Early Years practitioner and managed a pre-school setting for nine years. She then moved on to obtain the post graduate certificate in Early Years and Primary Education.  She has worked as a Reception, KS1 and KS2 teacher in the secular state sector as well as in a Voluntary Aided Islamic school.  Currently Rehana is working at Ayesha Community where she is responsible for the development and delivery of FS2 curriculum.

Jean Linskey (Edexcel)

Jean has over 30 years Mathematics teaching experience (to A-level).  Her experience includes being Head of Mathematics Department at a large secondary school and has taught at many schools in Barnet.  Jean was also the Principal examiner for Edexcel  (set papers, write mark schemes, train examiners, supervise marking, involved in grade boundary decisions) and has authored many GCSE Mathematics textbooks  (Hodder and Pearson) and GCSE Mathematics Revision Guides and workbooks.

Sarah Fretwell-Jex

Sarah Fretwell-Jex has been involved in education since 1988. She has taught in HE and FE and worked with Edexcel/Pearson for the last 8 years. She is a trainer who covers BTEC Vocational qualifications from E1 up to Level 7 and also writes Tutor Support Materials and Units from time to time.

Someera Butt (Al Noor Primary School, Ilford)

Someera Butt has 16 years of combined teaching & school experience at primary & secondary levels, including 8 years as Headteacher at Al-Noor Primary School where she presently serves. Al-Noor Primary has been the winner of the past three consecutive Islam Channel GPU Education Awards for most outstanding primary in the South of Britain as well as winner of the AMS’ inaugural Citizenship and Community Cohesion award. Someera has completed the NPQH, a post graduate module in mentoring & coaching, an MSc in Theoretical physics from Imperial College and NLP certification from NLPTA. Her profile includes past work with the Association of Muslim Schools UK, Nida Trust, JIMAS, the Education Committee of the Muslim Council of Britain and as a team inspector with the Bridge Schools' Inspectorate. She holds a weekly Qur’an circle in her local masjid and is a mum of four and a grandmother of one.

Zaheera Navlakhi (Al Noor Primary School)

Sr. Zaheera is a senior teacher at Al Noor Primary School. As part of the senior leadership team one of her key roles is Assessment Coordinator. She has experience of introducing APP, training staff to use it as well as managing teachers within the school to help ensure it is implemented effectively.

Sheikh Ahmed Babikir (Islamia Primary School)

Sheikh Ahmed Babikir has been actively involved in Dawah in the UK since the 1970s and is currently the Imam of Yusuf Islam's Islamia Primary School.  He studied the Islamic Sciences in Sudan under Sheikh Fatih Qaribullah (Rahimah'Ullah) and has certified Ijaza'at in various Islamic disciplines including fiqh, hadith, aqeedah, dawah, tajweed, and tassawuff.  For many years, the Sheikh has been actively helping the poor and needy in his native Sudan and in 2004 he decided to contribute in an official capacity, from which the international relief agency Ulfa Aid was founded, with Sheikh Ahmed as chairman.  Sheikh Ahmed delivered one of the keynote speeches at the 2010 AMS Conference.  Video

Majid Ishaque (Al Noor Primary School)

Majid Ishaque has 12 years of teaching experience in both primary and secondary schools. He is currently the Deputy Headteacher of the east London Al-Noor Muslim primary school which has been the happy winner of Islam Channel's GPU Education Award for the past three years, for most outstanding Muslim primary in the south of the British Isles. He had previously worked in the state sector and worked in schools in challenging circumstances, including special measures. He is currently working towards attaining his NPQH. Majid is also a School Improvement Officer for the Association of Muslim Schools UK and provides training & consultancy for a number of muslim organisations nationally. He has recently begun an MBA course in Educational Leadership at the Institute of Education.