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Vertical tutor grouping [Yrs 7-11]

Last post 02/07/09 at 23:30 by atics, 7 replies

Post started by dbrockhurst on 20/06/09 at 20:07

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Posted by: dbrockhurst 20/06/2009 at 20:07

Joined on 27/02/2006

Posts 10

My school will become vertically grouped in September 2009 with years 7-11 placed into 4 "houses". This will involve all of the vertical tutor groups working on similar themes for the first hour of each day prior to entering the standard curriculum timetable for the rest of the day.

We have been and still are preparing staff, students and parents for this change.

I would welcome any positive advice on how best to make this change to vertical tutoring most effective.

DeeBee

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Posted by: Casy 20/06/2009 at 21:16

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Joined on 07/04/2004

Posts 3,090

What size are your groups?
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Posted by: egyptiangirl 21/06/2009 at 20:10

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Joined on 31/10/2000

Posts 1,543

If you do a search in these forums you will find many many threads on this. Look through them first then ask specific qus.
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Posted by: dbrockhurst 01/07/2009 at 22:05

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Joined on 27/02/2006

Posts 10

Each tutor group will ba about 20-ish.
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Posted by: dbrockhurst 01/07/2009 at 22:06

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Joined on 27/02/2006

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Ta v. m.

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Posted by: beats 01/07/2009 at 22:25

Joined on 15/06/2005

Posts 307

One problem to be aware of is how much upper school will not like it (not trying to be negative, speaking from experience). I just started in my school when they made this switch, I didn't actually see one yr 11 girl for the first month I was there as she wanted to be with her friends. When they left, they said their biggest regret was being separated from their friends/ form group they'd travelled through the school with.

Otherwise, good luck! We introduced peer mentoring the following year, so the older pupils were given the job of being form buddies - yr11 with yr7 and yr10 with yr8. That helped reduce some of the grumbles.

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Posted by: sideshow 02/07/2009 at 23:21

Joined on 11/06/2003

Posts 66,345

I would say that you need some kind of student leadership within the houses so that events actually occur and there is some identification between the students of the house. Doing sport one day per week in that hour might be good for helping them know each other. Also remember that while there might be 4 year ten in one group - you also need the year ten in the house to bond for house competitions - so you can do horizontal one day per week - maybe the head of year can take them out once per foutrnight?

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Posted by: atics 02/07/2009 at 23:30

Joined on 05/02/2007

Posts 271

It's definitely better for students in the long term. The Year 11s may not appreciate it, but as other years get used to it and future years won't know anything different, it will have been worth it. They have break time to be with their friends. It's good for them to mix with other year groups and develop good social/community skills during this time.