Matthew Shanks, CEO of Education South West, on why young people should be judged at 25, not 16
“We value what we measure, but in education we haven’t always measured what we value.”
The first Heads & Tales episode of 2026 takes us into the office of Matthew Shanks FCCT, where a large poster can be seen reading "Work hard and be nice to people". They are words that could be dismissed as mere platitude, until you get to know Matthew and his style of leadership. As CEO of Education South West (ESW), former headteacher and serving Ofsted inspector, he lives and breathes all things education.
In conversation with Walter Kerr, Matthew draws on a remarkable 30 years plus in the sector to explore what leadership really looks like when the stakes are high and the system (and policy) is unforgiving. He discusses running a multi-academy trust across the southwest of England, the responsibility of supporting heads without smothering them and why his own bruising experience of inspection ultimately led him to become and inspector himself.
Matthew compellingly makes the case that we can't judge education in a linear fashion, making the case for measuring success at the age of 25 not 16, arguing that lives, confidence and contribution matter far more than flash-in-the-pan exams. Throughout, he returns to the same themes: principled leadership over perfection, tolerance of the shortcomings of others and the importance of kindness in roles that can otherwise have the opposite effect.