Speakers

Formerly Principal of an award-winning international school in the Middle East, Matthew is now an educational consultant and trainer, speaker and writer, content creator and coach, architect of #themonalisaeffect®, and host of The Data Conversation podcast.

In recent years, he has worked face-to-face or remotely with thousands of educators across hundreds of schools in more than 60 countries, helping them to use a triangle of assessment data to maximise student wellbeing and, as a result, student outcomes.

He has collaborated closely with GL Education on training and product development for almost a decade, including his regular – and regularly sold out – online workshops on CAT4, the Progress Tests, and PASS Triangulation. Most recently, he was selected by ISC Research to contribute to their pivotal Future of Assessment report, and the corresponding webinar panel discussion was part of an assessment 'double bill' at the Outstanding Schools Europe conference with Professor Dylan William.

Matthew has also written for all three issues of Wellbeing in International Schools Magazine, and will join Diana Osagie, Priya Lakhani, and Lord Jim Knight on the main stage at the COBIS Annual Conference.

Matthew is an Associate Consultant for LSC Education, a role in which he coaches senior leaders in the UK and internationally, and he also leads governance training with international school boards. He is a passionate advocate for and ally of #deij worldwide, a member of the Diverse Educators network and the ECIS #deij team, and host of the "Jack and Me" podcast.

Jessica Watson develops the GL training programmes which support schools across the globe to analyse, understand and maximise the use of their assessment data.

Jessica has previously worked in inner-city schools as a Mathematics and Spanish teacher and as a Head of Maths. It was in this role that she realised how powerful data is in informing school development planning, teaching practice, and in recognising where our attention is most effective.

After completing a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Nottingham, Helen joined the teaching profession through Teach First. She worked as an Assistant Learning Director, Science and Psychology teacher in the Midlands before leaving the classroom to support a wide range of schools and Multi-Academy Trusts as an Education Adviser.

Now as Head of Training and Assessment Insights at GL Assessment, Helen applies her rigorous academic background in research and data handling alongside her knowledge and experience of teaching to help schools unlock the power of their assessment data to help pupils achieve their very best.

Helen leads a team of former teachers, intervention leads and middle and senior leaders who help schools analyse and interpret their assessment data. From one-to-one expert support to essential guides and webinars, Helen and her team work hard to ensure schools have everything they need to make the most of their assessments and plan next steps.

Finn has 16 years of teaching experience in UK state, independent and international schools. He has worked in Senior Leadership teams and led a variety of subject areas.

As a teaching practitioner, Finn valued assessment as a vital component to communicating to students and their families how learning could be developed. He experienced first-hand the enormous benefits of bringing together the data from CAT4, The Progress Test Series and PASS to create clear and essential formative data which can be easily understood, analysed and acted upon.

Finn is now dedicated to supporting schools using his knowledge of GL products and how they can be used to improve their students’ outcomes.

Wendy’s career has been founded on the belief that a thorough understanding of each child through quality assessment is integral to bringing down barriers to learning and supporting all students to achieve their full potential.

She has worked as a Lecturer in Initial Teacher Training, Specialist Leader in Education for Science (SLE) and whilst in the classroom she was a Science Lead, a Leading Literacy Teacher and SENDCo Teacher.

Her belief is that each school is unique; she is passionate about working with schools to gain a better understanding of their needs and how to use their data effectively and efficiently to ensure the best outcome for each child and the whole school. Wendy’s experience, both in the classroom and in an advisory capacity, helps her to work with schools to maximise the impact from the data to inform interventions and student support.