This book explains how school organization by age (grade) alone, sets schools on a factory course that is harmful and ultimately self-defeating to all involved and to ecology. It returns us to three systems thinking concepts; purpose, measures, and method. The book explains why school managers and administrators are deluded by the system they operate and by how they understand complexity (the variety of value demand on the system, or what people need to be able to draw-down to make progress).

This book returns us to the fundamental confusion of purpose. It involves revisiting our interpretation of human psychology and its application in the workplace—seeking out flaws in our organizational thinking and finding the best means of putting us back in touch with who we are—our thinking selves. The answer, or at least its start, is Vertical Tutoring. Vertical Tutoring (mixed-age groups) is the first domino of a redesign process. It changes all learning relationships and through personalization and it is this that drives the management task. It is the first domino needed for better systemic change and ensures that parents, students, and everyone employed by the school is involved in learning.

For school leaders, parents, teachers and students, this means redesigning the way school management works, identifying values driven purposes from the customers’ perspective, and the roles stakeholders play in trying to make the work, work. In short, this book cuts through the dross of the great education debate and offers a better, more innovative, and safer way forward -and at no cost.