Royal Navy

Matthew started his professional life in the Royal Navy as a Warfare Officer. After training and gaining his Commission at Britannia Royal Naval College learning how to lead teams of 5 to 500 people. He undertook further training aboard HMS ILLUSTRIOUS, HMS YORK and other smaller warships. He sailed to various parts of the world, including: pirate hunting off of Oman; deployments through Europe and the Mediterranean; and getting frozen off the Scottish coasts and islands. After losing a fight with gravity, he found himself sailing a desk at a training school where he learnt he was a far better teacher than ship driver.

His time in the Royal Navy instilled in him the importance of leadership, integrity and teamwork. They are themes that form the genesis of his practice and pedagogy as a teacher. You can read more about how this experience has informed Matthew’s practice here.

Matthew has contributed to national RE projects including Big Ideas for RE; CPD for The Bible Society; and advising on and developing exemplar lessons and curriculum as part of a team for the RE Council’s Religion & Worldviews project.

Matthew is a regular RE advisor on the Myatt & Co Primary Subject Network meetings series. He is also producing the 40 episodes RE Knowledge Bites video series for Myatt & Co. A member of Norfolk SACRE, he is advising on the revisions to the nationally regarded Norfolk Locally Agreed Syllabus for RE which will inform the curriculum and learning of all schools in Norfolk.

To date, his writing on pedagogy have been published in teachPrimary, Times Educational Supplement (online and in print), RE:ONLINE, and HWRK Magazine to name just a few. Matthew has presented at conferences for NATRE, Norfolk SACRE and has recorded RE subject network videos for Myatt & Co. He has also delivered CPD to schools and clusters. Bespoke CPD can be delivered to your school on request.

Teaching

Matthew has been teaching since 2010 working in Primary, Junior and Middle schools in the State and Public sectors.

His practice has focused within KS2, teaching in Years 4, 5 and 6 for the last decade. As the subject lead for Religious Education within his school, Matthew has developed a multidisciplinary worldviews pedagogy within his school. This curriculum has been awarded an REQM Gold Award and graded as Excellent by SIAMS. The content of this curriculum and the supporting change management process have been explored in many articles and presentations and his book Wayfinder.

He is an editor and writer for the ReformingRE project that is lead a conversation between teachers, educators and academics as Religious Education transforms into Religions & Worldviews. This online project can be seen at the ReformingRE website.

Leadership

Matthew is a student of leadership, reading and researching widely in business and military fields and how this can be applied to school leadership. Examples of this cross discipline research can be seen in his book on change leadership, Wayfinder: leading curriculum vision into reality, which was published in 2023.

He is a Member of the Chartered Management Institute and became a Chartered Manager in 2024.

Matthew is married to Emily and lives in Norfolk surrounded by too many books and even more Warhammer models. He is usually seen dressed in tweed, with a well waxed handlebar mustache and hunting for another cup of tea. He wrote this About section in the third person because the first person voice makes a chap sound far too full of himself.