Socially Collaborative Schools

The Heretic's Guide to Mixed-Age Tutor Groups, System Design, and the Goal of Goodness

Peter A Barnard

The inherited model of schooling based on same-age tutor groups is not only wrong but anti-learning and unsafe. When examined from a systems perspective, the assumptions are revealed. This explains why schools fail to respond to reform and why reform is the wrong approach. It blames the same-age structure as the direct cause of bullying, poor parent partnership, mental health issues and more, pointing out the system’s separation from psychology and child welfare. When schools adopt a mixed-age system (tutor groups / home-groups mixed by age) these adverse effects are resolved. The book calls for wholesale change to the way schools organize relationships and issues of connectivity. The author uses insights and research from his work with hundreds of schools worldwide transitioning from the same-age system to one based on mixed-age. This book rejects the use of pro-social programs (add-ons and fixes) in favor of one able to design in empathy, emotional intelligence, and character.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 300 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-4758-4431-3 • Hardback • September 2018 • $75.00 • (£58.00)

978-1-4758-4432-0 • Paperback • September 2018 • $35.00 • (£27.00)

978-1-4758-4433-7 • eBook • September 2018 • $33.00 • (£25.00)

Subjects: Education / Administration / General, Education / Classroom Management, Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / General

Socially Collaborative Schools

The Heretic's Guide to Mixed-Age Tutor Groups, System Design, and the Goal of Goodness

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

The inherited model of schooling based on same-age tutor groups is not only wrong but anti-learning and unsafe. When examined from a systems perspective, the assumptions are revealed. This explains why schools fail to respond to reform and why reform is the wrong approach. It blames the same-age structure as the direct cause of bullying, poor parent partnership, mental health issues and more, pointing out the system’s separation from psychology and child welfare. When schools adopt a mixed-age system (tutor groups / home-groups mixed by age) these adverse effects are resolved. The book calls for wholesale change to the way schools organize relationships and issues of connectivity. The author uses insights and research from his work with hundreds of schools worldwide transitioning from the same-age system to one based on mixed-age. This book rejects the use of pro-social programs (add-ons and fixes) in favor of one able to design in empathy, emotional intelligence, and character.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 300 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-4758-4431-3 • Hardback • September 2018 • $75.00 • (£58.00)

978-1-4758-4432-0 • Paperback • September 2018 • $35.00 • (£27.00)

978-1-4758-4433-7 • eBook • September 2018 • $33.00 • (£25.00)

Subjects: Education / Administration / General, Education / Classroom Management, Education / Teaching Methods & Materials / General

Author

Peter A Barnard is a retired school principal, and now runs his own international school consultancy. He has written five books on system change and is the acknowledged expert on mixed-age organization (vertical tutoring) and schools as systems.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Section One: The School as a Living System
1. Systems, Purposes, and Problems –A First Look
2. Reacting to Disturbances
3. From Collaborative Professionalism to Social Collaboration
4. The Pusher, the Puller and Thinking Differently
5. The School as a Living System: Disturbance and Fast Fixes
6. More Disturbance –Bullying
7. Mental Health and Systems
8. The School as a Viable System
9. Wicked problems and Parent Partnership
10. Distributed Leadership, Psychology and Collective Teacher Efficacy
Section Two: The Long and Winding Road to the Socially Collaborative School
1. A First Management Trawl
2. From New Public Management (NPM) to Public Value Management (PVM)
3. The Problem of Deliverology
4. Talent Management and a First Look at Teams
5. Google and Emerging Thinking
6. School Culture
7. Learning from the Public Sector
8. Learning Organizations and the Color Teal
9. The Buurtzorg School
10. Moving from Complicated to Complex: the Strange Case of the Effect List
11. Concluding Remarks: Two Management Models and Systems Thinking
Chapter Summaries
Appendices
Bibliography
About the Author

Reviews

Socially Collaborative Schools will be a breath of fresh air for those looking to truly transform their school ethos and embrace the idea of community. Having made the switch to a vertical tutoring system, we can safely say Barnard is correct; we will never go back. Students and staff alike feel liberated by the changes and only now is it possible to see how restrictive the same-age system is.
— Claire Copeland and Gemma Pearse, Trafalgar School, Portsmouth

Socially Collaborative Schools is a fascinating account of the author's passion and vast experience of this 'second system'.
— Karen Wespieser, director, Centre for Education Economics

Features

To learn how to design a higher performing values-led school check out: www.verticaltutoring.org.

Socially Collaborative Schools

The Heretic's Guide to Mixed-Age Tutor Groups, System Design, and the Goal of Goodness

Peter A Barnard

Socially Collaborative Schools

The Heretic's Guide to Mixed-Age Tutor Groups, System Design, and the Goal of Goodness

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