Testimonials

We have been fortunate to see first-hand Matthew’s exceptional ability to engage and inspire. While he has a remarkable gift for commanding an audience with his powerful words, what truly sets him apart is his skill in guiding data-driven educators to look beyond the numbers and see the whole child whilst using the data to raise questions. His work with us has gone far deeper than surface-level strategies, leaving a lasting impact on how we think, plan, and act as a school community. Matthew’s passion, eloquence, and genuine dedication have made him an invaluable partner in our journey.

Matthew possesses an exceptional talent for commanding an audience with his powerful words, but what sets him apart is his unique ability to help data-driven individuals move beyond mere numbers to take a holistic look at their students. His impact goes beyond the surface, leaving a permanent mark on the educational landscape. His passion, eloquence, and genuine dedication make him an invaluable asset to any organisation fortunate enough to collaborate with him.

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Matthew. His warmth, empathy, and humour are crucial to his work, and the feedback speaks for itself. Parents gave his keynote talk 100% positive feedback. Our inclusion team left feeling energised and refocused. Middle leaders reported deep engagement and greater clarity after their session. Matthew doesn’t just promote wellbeing; he embodies it and inspires it in others.

Working with Matthew allowed us to view our school’s vision and values through a new lens. He affirmed our strengths while challenging us to notice more, listen longer and stay attentive to the stories behind the numbers. The result is a renewed sense of purpose: clearer focus, shared language, and a deeper commitment to making every learner feel known. This shifted how we view assessment, not as a verdict, but as a starting point for meaningful conversations. Through his facilitation, we were encouraged to replace labels with listening and to build richer, more student-centred dialogues.

Matthew is a consummate professional and always easy to collaborate with. His focus is on student wellbeing, and he uses his personal story to illustrate this in a really powerful way. Data is considered by many to be a cold topic, but Matthew gives it humanity.

Working with Matthew at the International School Rheintal was a genuinely impactful experience for our entire community. His ability to create space for honest dialogue among parents, students, and staff was exceptional, fostering both vulnerability and trust. Through his work with The Mona Lisa Effect®, Matthew translates complex ideas around belonging, inclusion, and universal design into practical, meaningful action. The result is not just reflection, but real momentum for change. His work leaves a lasting impression on both individuals and the wider school culture.

Matthew’s drive and determination to share his passion for data and its use to personalise learning is infectious. Sometimes in life you meet people who can help you understand things through completely different lenses. Matthew is one of those people.

The impact of the work GEMS Founders did with Matthew was most felt in the significant shift in how leaders thought about success. Wellbeing moved from being viewed as a supporting initiative to becoming a fundamental driver of achievement, engagement and long-term flourishing. Leaders increasingly recognised that when people feel valued, connected and safe, they are able to contribute more fully and perform at their best. This change in thinking influenced decision making at every level and ensured that wellbeing and belonging became central to the school's vision and daily practice.

Teachers embraced a deeper understanding of their role in creating a culture where every child and every colleague felt seen, heard and appreciated. Relationships became more intentional, conversations more meaningful and collaboration more authentic. Staff increasingly viewed belonging not as something individuals had to find for themselves, but as something the whole community had a responsibility to create together. Through Matthew’s work with us, there was a stronger sense of connection between colleagues, greater empathy within teams and a renewed focus on the human experience behind every interaction. Staff developed the confidence to be more open, supportive and reflective, creating an environment where people felt comfortable bringing their whole selves to work and learning.

Most importantly, the work fostered a collective belief that everyone matters and that every member of the community has a role to play in helping others feel they belong. It created a culture where kindness became more intentional, inclusion became more visible and wellbeing became everyone's responsibility.

Matthew’s passion for his work is infectious; his articulate, deep and determined commitment to making the world a better place through education shines through in all that he does, whether as a speaker, a trainer, a coach or as a thought partner for schools. Humble yet unswerving in his relentless focus on people-centred education, Matthew enables people to grow and change. It is a privilege to work with him.

Matthew challenged us to think differently about what truly matters in education. He was provocative, insightful, and deeply compelling, particularly in his insistence that warm data must be central to how we build belonging, trust, and relational intelligence in our school. Through his framing of data as story rather than scoreboard, he helped us move beyond surface metrics and see the hidden, vulnerable, relational threads in our student and staff lives. Matthew doesn’t hand you answers. Instead, he provokes you to discover them. We are grateful for his thought partnership and look forward to continuing this journey of embedding warm, relational knowing into our culture. Without reservation, I recommend him to any school committed to transforming data, wellbeing, and belonging from the inside out.

Matthew’s emphasis on elevating marginalised voices has been pivotal in directing our schoolwide initiatives. By guiding us to consider diverse perspectives in our planning processes, Matthew's work has helped us create more inclusive and empathetic policies and programs. His dedication to equity has not only improved student wellbeing but also strengthened our community's commitment to diversity and inclusion.

From time as Director of Schools, British International School Riyadh: I couldn't recommend working with Matthew highly enough. He doesn't give us the answers but challenges us to find our own pathway within the individual contexts of our different campuses, acting as a critical friend. His work is research-informed and grounded in strong evidence, supporting us on the next steps of our journey as a school.

Working with Matthew has made us think about things differently and in doing so we are then doing things differently. We are using a range of lenses to ensure that we know our students and can best meet their needs. Our journey with Matthew has illuminated our thinking and aligned how we work across the school.

Matthew is a man on a mission to change mindsets and cause paradigm shifts in how schools approach education. By emphasising the measurement of what truly matters, he empowers us to look at data through different lenses. He exhorts us to piece together the unseen, the invisible and the silent parts of the story of every child in our care. Learning from and with Matthew has caused my brain to rewire, to see beyond the invisible, and to look underneath the mask we and our students all wear.

Engaging, inspiring and deeply thought-provoking, Matthew's training is first class. Matthew shared with us his wisdom and passion for ensuring all feel a sense of belonging and inclusion when collecting and handling data. Matthew manages to meet what is a delicate balance of vulnerability and the academic, basing his entire approach on personal experience and boundless research. The result is that others are inclined to look inwardly, making the sessions meaningful and incredibly powerful. Everyone will enjoy their time with Matthew. He is articulate and sincere, mixing humour with challenge in a way that encourages a new way of perceiving one's own purpose - and with practical tips to tackle the unknown. People leave Matthew's sessions renewed and encouraged to make a difference.

I have been consistently impressed by Matthew's revolutionary take on student data. His holistic approach is not just about numbers; it's about stories, about every student's journey. Watching Matthew present is truly captivating; he effortlessly demystifies complex topics, making them relatable and digestible. His contributions are vital for educators and institutions aiming to create nurturing, inclusive educational spaces.

Working with Matthew is a real game changer for international schools. His unwavering commitment to ensuring that every child, without condition or exception, be seen, be heard, be known and belong is inspirational. He has the unique ability to interweave the complexities of whole school data with individual student stories. His intelligence, attention to detail and ability profoundly to impact staff and students alike make him a joy to work alongside.

Matthew’s dedication to making data relatable and human has inspired me to view our educational challenges through a new lens, emphasising empathy, understanding, and the individual needs of each student. He has encouraged us to embrace a more holistic view, where academic achievements are balanced with the psychological and emotional wellbeing of our students - a call to action that has galvanised our faculty and staff. His influence on our school will be felt for years to come.

Matthew stretched and challenged our thinking about what constitutes data in our context. His workshops are engaging, thought-provoking and at the forefront of current thinking and ideas in education.

Matthew has delivered conference sessions and training on a range of topics for our international school audience – data, wellbeing, inclusion, belonging, leadership – drawing on his personal and professional experience and expertise. To all he does, he brings passion, compassion, authority, and generosity, and consistently demonstrates his commitment to ensuring all children and young people thrive.

Matthew has been a regular contributor to International Teacher Magazine almost since we started publication in 2015. Sometimes challenging, he is always interesting and engaging. Matthew draws on his huge range of educational experience to write with real authority about an impressive spectrum of educational topics, from governance and identity to data management and equity. At the heart of his work is a deep commitment to the needs of young people and how the grown ups in their world can learn to understand them in a way that will bring out the best in them both.

Matthew is an exceptional and inspiring educator and advocate, who is making a positive impact in our world. His authentic commitment to equity and justice is commendable, ensuring every voice is heard and valued, and he cocreates innovative solutions that contribute to individual and community growth. My experience working with Matthew has been transformative.

I have worked with Matthew on various projects over the years and sought his expertise and advice in many areas. Despite his humility, Matthew is a breed apart in terms of his knowledge, insight, and passion for inclusive and holistic education and wellbeing. He is a captivating public-speaker and always delivers a punchy message. And I know that schools who have invited him to speak with their staff and students have found his training transformational.

Matthew's deep understanding of how data intersects with wellbeing is enlightening. Both during our time together at the ‘Data in Schools’ conference and during our conversation for my Learning Explorations podcast, his ability to explain complex data-related concepts and their impact on student and teacher wellbeing was both insightful and thought-provoking. I highly recommend Matthew for his expertise and his ability to communicate complex ideas with clarity and relevance.

Matthew and I met through BSME and, having connected and realised how aligned our vision and values were, we stayed in touch. He has contributed regularly to the #DiverseEd community as a blogger and as a speaker and trainer at our virtual events. He is also a chapter author in our book, Diverse Educators: A Manifesto. He is an inclusive educator, leader and ally, and an advocate for belonging for all.

Matthew helps data tell the human story…ensuring insights translate into meaningful, sustainable change in daily practice…A student said they felt listened to, not simply surveyed. It resonated because it captured our purpose: to hear stories behind the data, deepen understanding, learn more about what matters, and gain insight to strengthen belonging.

At Aiglon, we are constantly striving to be the best we can be, which led us to seek out new ways to capture our students' full stories. We commissioned this partnership because we wanted to look at data through a fundamentally human lens, broadening our horizons to ensure our students are entirely comfortable with how they are supported. We knew Matthew's approach would drive a cultural shift where everyone on campus feels truly seen.

The biggest impact so far is the heightened awareness across our team; we are leaning into brand-new ways of thinking about our students. Instead of shying away from challenges, our staff is now openly grappling with really hard questions and learning to embrace uncertainty. It has provided a great impetus for us to challenge the status quo and push ourselves to be even better.

Our first engagement with Matthew Savage shifted our understanding of wellbeing. It moved us beyond thinking of wellbeing as a programme, an intervention or a set of measures, towards seeing it as fundamentally about knowing each child well enough to understand what enables them to thrive. His language of every child needing to be seen, heard, known and belong stayed with us, and by the following year we had a shared vocabulary and a shared set of values around children, learning and wellbeing. Inviting Matthew back felt less like bringing in an external consultant and more like continuing conversation that had become part of our own thinking.

The biggest change is that we now look at the child before we look at the data. Matthew's Japanese maple analogy resonates with me: a maple needs very particular soil, conditions and care to thrive, and so does each child. We also learned that the value of a dataset lies not only in the patterns it reveals but in the questions we bring to it. Change the prompt, and you change the perspective. Instead of asking only "What does the data tell us?", we now ask "What else might this data be telling us?" That has brought a far more nuanced approach to triangulating evidence and understanding the learner behind it. What has stayed with me most is the continuity of the conversation. We are no longer asking "How do we improve wellbeing?" but "How do we create the conditions in which this particular child can thrive?" Every child deserves to be known deeply enough for us to understand their unique soil for growth. Data can help us notice, triangulate and ask better questions, but the goal is deeply human: that every child is seen, valued, known and given the conditions to flourish.