The concept of vertical tutoring has been around for about 20 years or so, though it’s only in the last five to ten years that there’s been a notable increase in the number of British secondary schools adopting it or considering doing so in the future. Vertical tutoring has recently become a bit of a buzzword in educational circles, and as the number of schools adopting the approach grows, so does wider recognition of the term beyond educational theorists. Use of the expression has also established horizontal tutoring as a contrastive term, referring to conventional organization based on age and year groups.