You know what it’s like. You have too much data, and yet also not enough. And all you want to do is be able to know your students and your school better.
Matthew does
data differently.
He helps you and your school know better, whilst guiding you towards all the places where that knowing might be hiding.
Because every child, without condition, exception or compromise, deserves to
be seen.be heard.be known.belong.
You are pulled in two directions.
Everyone wants the numbers, their evidence for everything, good or bad. And yet you and your team know that evidence also lies in what you intuit, and also in not knowing at all, yet. And you’re not sure about good or bad either.
Matthew helps manage these conflicting expectations, in a space where all types of knowing matter. Weaving with you rich stories about your school community as it is, and how it could be.
Matthew believes in belonging, and wants us to listen to data like stories.
Affiliated Consultant with the Council of International Schools. Founder and facilitator of DALIS. Affiliate Member of SENIA. Co-host of the Data Talks podcast. Member of the Global Equality Collective.
A global practice, in maps and numbers
“Working with Matthew has made us think about things differently, and in doing so we are then doing things differently. Our journey with Matthew has illuminated our thinking, and aligned how we work across the school.”
Helen Olds
Director, British International School Jeddah
How we work together.
01
I arrive with curiosity.
And, together, we surface what your community already believes about its children, and whether the ways you try to know them are worthy of those beliefs. Your context comes first, always — no two schools begin in the same place.
02
I work alongside your community.
Staff, students, parents, governors — everyone who knows your children, and everyone your data claims to describe. Through provocations, voice labs, coaching, and inquiry, we look together at what your ways of knowing reveal, and what they conceal — so that every child is seen, heard, known, and belongs.
03
You’re left not with a report on a shelf, but something bigger.
A shared language. Better questions, asked by your own people, of your own data. The internal capacity, habits, and confidence to keep the work alive long after I’ve gone — because the goal was never that you’d need me. It’s that you wouldn’t.
Matthew reimagines assessment as human, relational and story-rich, a process of sense-making, of getting to know you.
“We can carry on pretending, or we can work harder to keep our promises.”
“Working with Matthew Savage, does mean work. This is because Matthew invites you and your school into a working relationship with truth and honesty - with what really matters. It’s a relationship that deserves time, commitment, and a willingness to take real responsibility.
As a school leader, you know deep down where you and your school fall short on promises and guiding statements, which, let’s be honest, are almost identical to those proclaimed by the school next door. This work asks you to look at all your data, your signals, even the ones you don’t know you’re sending, and to look again. See more honestly. Understand more deeply. Ask with rigour. What are you actually doing to, and for your people?
This kind of work is not possible without a guide. Matthew sets you on your path and leads you into your unknown so that you can begin to know better. We can carry on pretending, or we can work harder to keep our promises. Matthew is the drive we need to be more honest with ourselves. Because if we’re not, staff, students, and parents lose faith. When the world outside our schools is smashing international promises all day every day, let’s work harder to keep ours.
Matthew will help you. He did me.”
La Mór
Former Deputy Head of School, Bavarian International School
What schools and colleagues say about working with Matthew.