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Flexi School

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What is Flexi Schooling?

Flexi Schooling describes an arrangement between the parent and school where children are registered at the school in the usual way but attend school only part time. The rest of the time the child is home educated.

There may be any of a number of reasons why this arrangement might be made for example:

  • Illness

  • A desire to home educate while making use of school for some subjects

  • school Phobia/refusal

  • A staged return to school after an absence for some reason

The Legal Position

Flexi schooling is a legal option should the parent be able to arrange the agreement of the head teacher of the school at which s/he is registered.

It is an offence for a parent to fail to ensure that a child of compulsory school age attends regularly at the school at which s/he is registered. However the 1996 Education Act states:

"The child shall not be taken to have failed to attend regularly at the school by reason of his absence from the school (a) with leave" Section 444 (3)

The term Leave is defined as:

"In this section 'leave', in relation to a school, means leave granted by any person authorised to do so by the governing body or proprietor of the school." Section 444(9)

In practice this means the Head teacher. To arrange flexi schooling therefore you should prepare a proposal and set up a meeting with the head teacher. Whether or not it is allowed is entirely up to the head teachers discretion. The head teacher will probably want to discuss the proposal with his/her senior staff, form teacher and possibly the school governors. The Head will probably contact the LEA for their opinion as in all likelihood the head teacher will never have encountered this option before and will want to discus the legal implications.

Your proposal should include a paragraph stating that as the child will be in your care and absent from school there are no insurance implications for the school.

The responsibility to ensure that the child is receiving a full time education remains with the parent. The LEA may want to ensure itself that the child's education is suitable to the child's age ability and aptitude and any special needs s/he may have (as per section 7 of the 1996 education act).

Advantages

If it can be made to work flexi schooling can allow all kinds of advantages for parent and child. It fan mean that a child has access to resources either difficult or impossible to access from home and allow participation in sports activities as well as accessing specialist tuition that the family may not be able to offer. It can also enable the parent responsible for education to take part time work outside the home.

Problems

There are a number of problems commonly encountered by parents attempting to arrange Flexi schooling for their child:

  • SAT's - Regardless of any flexi schooling arrangements if a child is registered at a school the child's SAT's results will be counted. Should the child not take the SAT's test then the school scores zero in all the tests the child fails to take. This is a disincentive for the school (particularly a small school) to make such arrangements. If you agree to the child attending the SAT's tests then the school may be fearful that the child will score poorly again effecting the schools league table position.

  • The same as above applies to GCSE's. If the child is not intending to take a number of GCSE's the school may decide that this will damage their league table position.

  • Discipline - schools sometimes anticipate there being discipline problems should one child be seen by other pupils failing to attend lessons s/he doesn't want to attend. The school may anticipate further requests or demands for this arrangement.

  • The LEA often will not approve of the idea. While formally the school is charged with the responsibility for deciding on whether to allow a flexi schooling arrangement the head teacher will often consult the LEA. Ultimately the head teacher may decide that s/he does not want to antagonise the LEA - who is after all their employer.

  • Many school Head Teachers see Flexi schooling as part of a process of a staged return to school following some difficulty like school refusal (school phobia), they seem to fail to understand, even when explicitly discussed that some families really do prefer home education to school and will continue to do so into the future.
  • A number of schools which do not want to agree to flexi schooling arrangements claim that there are insurance problems particularly public liability insurance. This is a totally invalid claim, if the child is on authorised leave the child is the responsibility of the parent and not the school and is therefore not in the care of the school and thus not subject to the school insurance liability.

Over View

Despite these problems there are a small but growing number of children taking up this option. However some parents continue to report that schools renege on promises and that they seem to be working to another agenda - the return of the child to full time education and see home education as an aberration. That is not to say that it always fails, there are a some notable exceptions to the rule where parents, child and school have achieved a stable and successful arrangement.

For further reading there is an article written by a home educating parent with extensive experience of home education about their experiences here