The Academic Tutorial and the identification of Critical Times as a planning strategy

This 'deep learning converstaion' is at the very heart of VT and yet schools still ignore this opportunity and so completely miss the point of VT. 

There are many school improvement drivers that can only develop in vertical systems. Among these are the tutor leadershio, student leadership and parent partnership. It is important to understand how these are linked to raise aspirations and attainment through the academic tutorial. All involve personal improvement and organisational learning. The student becomes linked to the school as a human organisation via a network of learning relationships. This is critical to the success of VT and to student voice and to parent partnership and engagement. This is the bit so many schools fail to embrace or understand. Instead, schools cling to minimal data (often a set of numbers) and undermine the key role of the tutor and of other students while isolating parents from their child's learning.

Let us first decide what the academic tutorial is and is not! It is not a day when a tutor delivers up to 28 so-called 'academic tutorials' to his/her class for 15 minutes each while attempting to set meaningful targets (Madness!). Neither is it a meeting between tutor and  students from the same class once a fortnight over a year (More madness!). It is certainly not a task for the Heads of Year or the Leadership Team to conduct alone and neither does it leave parents out of the process. Yet, all are common practice in schools and all comprise organisational ineffectiveness and dubious practice! For an academic tutorial to take place, the following criteria must be met...

• An academic tutorial takes between 30 to 60 minutes and this time has to be flexible: some take even longer and rightly so! 
• Parent(s) and tutee and tutor must be present. Parental engagement is vital...
• There must be a quiet place and an agreed time made by mutual contact. 
• The data that forms the basis for the tutorial must be provided for all parties: this must contain good information to assist in agreeing targets. Good ICT is essential
• Targets must have accompanying strategies for improvement or they are useless! All require training
• Monitoring is ongoing and a key tutor role 

In effect, VT is SEAL in action and as such is much more effective than delivering a 'programme'. The WALRUS is also good (We All Learn that Relationships Underpin Success!). What are we going to do when the Arctic melts?