Vertical Tutoring
VT : Family, Belonging, Achievement
6.61 We must all work together to create more cohesive, safer communities, helping young people to develop a sense of belonging and appreciation of those from other cultures and backgrounds. We must also promote the mutual benefits of communication, contact and joint enterprise between younger and older people.
The Children’s Plan, Department for Children, Schools, and Families
'In the schools teach whatever is necessary to equip the students for life.'
St Julie
'I have come so that they can have life and have it to the full.'
John 10.10
For more information please see our Frequently Asked Questions.
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INTRODUCTION
VT is a way of organising tutor groups so that they include a range of ages, making them more like a family. Evidence from schools across the country suggests that VT is a good way to support learning and raise achievement. It is also creates a stronger sense of belonging as students look to older – and younger – members of their form for support and advice.
In VT Notre Dame is looking ahead. Whatever the future holds for education, what is agreed is that equipping students with transferable skills and attributes will be essential for the world of work in years to come. The future will not be about knowledge alone but about the ability to be reflective, resilient and adaptable, working in many different roles, and about getting on with and working alongside a range of people of different ages and backgrounds. VT helps Notre Dame ensure that students gain this valuable experience throughout their school life.
WHY VT?
VT will build on and enhance the Notre Dame mission statement :
An optimistic school promoting Christian attitudes
VT embodies our sense of optimism and our Christian attitudes. It is about developing a greater sense of community, drawing students of different ages together and breaking down barriers. It is about help and support as students look to the experiences of each other to help in their own development.
A school where every person belongs
VT helps to strengthen belonging. It demonstrates to students the ways in which they belong to groups that are about much more than simply their age. Students will still belong to a year group and have their lessons with students their own age, but they will also see that they belong to the broader community of their tutor group, made up of a range of ages, to the community of their House and to the school community as a whole.
A school which values learning
Learning is the key to future success. But learning is not just about subject knowledge, it is about the ways in which individual’s learn best and about how best to work and learn with and through others. VT enables greater opportunities to learn from others. In each tutor group there will be students who have been through what another is going through, who will be able to offer advice about options choices or difficulties with a particular subject.
A school which rises to challenges and celebrates achievement
VT is about aspiration and inspiration. It enables students to see what others have achieved close up, and to learn from them. Through VT and the House system students will be encouraged to do their best, to take part and to make the most of the opportunities being at Notre Dame gives them. Vt encourages healthy competition for all talents and tastes.
Notre Dame RC School educates the whole person: Head, Heart and Hands
VT is about recognising the place of the individual in the wider community and about that individual recognising the part they play in a community made up of many different people, attitudes, ideas and ways of doing things. It is about developing the whole person.
HOW WE HAVE ORGANISED
Under VT each student in school is in a tutor group of 23 or 24 students. Each tutor group is made up of students from each year group (approximately 4 xY7, 4 x Y8, 4 x Y9, 4 x Y10, 4 x Y11, 2 x Y12, 2 x Y13).
The tutor groups belong to one of the five Houses. Each House has 7 tutor groups.
Students have a range of assemblies during tutor time throughout the year. There are House assemblies but also Year assemblies, especially when there is a need to impart specific year group information.
