👋 About Me

Matt Hurley

I'm an educator by profession, currently serving in senior leadership, where my work centres on student wellbeing, engagement, and the systems that support both students and staff to thrive.

🎯 The Journey

Over time, it became clear that many of the challenges schools face are not issues of intent or effort, but of structure. Fragmented tools, manual processes, duplicated data, and systems not designed for real school contexts often create unnecessary friction — particularly in areas as critical as pastoral care, behaviour support, and student engagement.

My first major software project, Sophia STARS, emerged directly from this reality — an internal platform to support consistent, ethical, and privacy-first tracking of student engagement and wellbeing.

💡 The Approach

Building Sophia STARS fundamentally changed how I thought about software. What began as a practical solution to a local problem evolved into a broader approach to system design:

👥 Start with people
⚖️ Respect constraints
Prioritise clarity
🔧 Build to last

🧭 Core Principles

  • 🧠 Software should reduce cognitive load, not add to it
  • 🔒 Systems must respect privacy and governance by default
  • 🏗️ Tools should be reliable, understandable, and built to last
  • 🎯 Technology should serve real needs in real contexts

📖 This Site

This site brings together projects and reflections — not as a commercial portfolio, but as a record of learning, iteration, and building software informed by leadership and teaching experience.

If you find the work interesting or have questions about the approaches documented here, feel free to get in touch 💬