Download explanatory notes on this book here. School Leadership is not the problem... and that's the problem!

  • why and how horizontal pastoral care (Year) systems undermine teaching and learning (schools think the opposite)

  • why teacher quality can only be judged and improved when school organisation (learning as a process) is understood and implemented through VT
  • how teaching and learning is undermined in almost every school by 'induction' days and the assumptions schools make about successful transition
  • how the influential McKinsey Report is partly right and mainly wrong (therefore misleading and unhelpful) all at the same time

  • why there has never been a time when every child has mattered less

  • how past (DCFS) government interference, prescription and regulation undermines schools rather than partners them

  • the critical roles of 'moral psychology, systems thinking and customer services' in schools

  • why schools have become back office systems when front office service sector systems are needed

  • how, why and when year-based schools 'killed' the tutor and then critically damaged teaching and learning
  • why books on school leadership and most research are unhelpful and often misleading for school development and learning as a supported learning process

  • why the so-called 'deeps' are only workable and have sense in a vertical system

  • why and how school leadership 'arrogance and ignorance' can mess-up the change to Vertical Tutoring

  • how VT creates learning relationships and support processes that raise standards and address school management issues


Contact me at  peter.a.barnard@btinternet.com or via www.verticaltutoring.org (complete the form below) for your copy and an invoice. Alternatively send a cheque for £19.00 payable to Peter Barnard Consulting Ltd., 160, Merryhill Rd Bushey, Watford, Herts. WD23 1DG. This book can also be purchased at Amazon, www.Amazon.co.uk  and good book shops [ISBN 978-1-907652-03-5] Grosvenor House (publishers).

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Why House Systems...? Ginny Green leads the House team with Peter Rattu at Sharnbrook upper School. Here she sets out some of the key issues based upon what schools often ask. School structures are extremely important although the DfES and LAs never understand what they should be! 

We evolved to Houses quite naturally. If the school and the students were to gain the benefits of VT, we needed to change from being separate HOYs, each of us isolated and doing our own thing, to HOH (Heads of School in effect) who could share ideas and work together. We are now officed altogether next to Student Support Services (Connections not dis-Connexions!). This increases synergy, releases more creativity within the school and better enables student leadership. In essence there is a kind of progression as set out below. Schools use many titles for this post: Heads of College, Heads of Learning, Learning Managers etc. In the end, each Head of House is rnning a small school rather than a seperate year. This means that Heads Of House are effectively all doing the same thing and that means that they need to work very collaboratively. A large school, therefore, becomes a smaller group of schools and each tutor runs an even smaller school. This makes the organisational system of the school more powerful, the reationships far stronger and improvement much easier.  

First, we can increase student involement. Second, we can increase the sum of the creativity within the school. Third, we can allow the natural growth of citizenship and fourth, we can be reasonably assured that this all leads to better relationships and improved performance. It's a wonderful mix of magic, belief and great people working together.


'Citizenship was never a 'subject' as such: citizenship is the way a school organises itself and works at its best to care for each other and get the best out of everyone'. If that is so, at any one time there should be a sense that the whole school is working together with nobody feeling isolated. The change has created a better sense of team and greater confidence with regard to the challenges we face. Oh Yes, and predicted results look set to rise next year and beyond...

Some schools ensure that a non teaching member of staff is attached to each House or Community or College! This is good practice. Others have gone further (the future?) and have non-teachers actually running Houses. In effect, HOH take over the running ofthe school and need to work as a team.

Transformation of systems really means transforming managers: HOY may or may not evolve to HOH. A HOH is not the same as a HOY. Each HOH is actually the Head of a small school while each tutor is Head of a mini-school with all that this implies. One job is about leadership (HOH) and the other is about being a super secretary (HOY). This is how big schools can behave like small schools and it is this that changes management learning systems from back to front office systems....