Flexischooling FAQ

Full time schooling will return in September and this will cause an increase in anxiety and stress among many families and children, yet CAMHS is already over stretched with waiting lists in some areas exceeding 3 years.

Thousands of stressed children will be unable to access CAMHS services in September, It's likely that many of their parents will turn to Elective Home Education, not from choice, but because they see no other legal option. We have been told by the DfE that they are expecting a doubling of families choosing to home educate into the future. My polls on FB Forums find that this may be correct.

Many will find they are unprepared for the task ahead of them, peer support groups will be unable to deal with the support and legal needs of this group and that could well result in ill-considered, emergency legislation to curb the rights of the wider home education community.

Flexischooling isn't Elective Home Education, but it can be considered an opportunity to taste a little of what it's like. Help families make a more considered decision and improve the experience and outcomes for children. It will also offer some children a respite from the stresses of full time school education following six months away.

Flexischooling is already available as an option in a couple of hundred schools around the UK. We would like to see this opportunity grow.The aim of the petition is to allow parents the right to expect at least 1 days flexischool a week rather than having to seek permission from a head teacher, which is currently too often refused.

I limited my petition to asking for just one day a week for one year only because I felt that this very 'limited ask' had the greatest possibility of success. Even if we fail, we will have brought Flexischooling to the attention of a much wider audience.

This isn't just a good thing for those many stressed kids who will be returning to school in September, it is also good for CAMHS in 'levelling off the spike' they are likely to face towards the end of 2020. It's good for families who have school refusing children and the inevitable threat of fines. It's good for the home education community who don’t want to see families forced into a decision they otherwise would not make and will have difficulty coping with such a massive influx, and good for schools, who have not so far experienced the benefits of flexischooling.

Schools will undoubtedly find it a challenge but I feel sure that this will be transformative to schools and their pupils. The main teaching union, NEU has already supported schemes very much like this known as 'blended learning'.

Please sign the petition,

Even if you have no intention of using the opportunity it offers. We are unlikely to see a better opportunity to drive forward school flexibility in the near future. Let's grasp this one.

Please share the petition widely, anywhere it may even remotely get support

8 Best interests and welfare of the child.

s175 of the Education Act 2002 states:

1. A local education authority shall make arrangements for ensuring that the functions conferred on them in their capacity as a local education authority are exercised with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
2. The governing body of a maintained school shall make arrangements for ensuring that their functions relating to the conduct of the school are exercised with a view to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children who are pupils at the school.

This section has wide implications and, basically means that the school and LA must look at the wider picture rather than just the child’s education. If there is a case for allowing flexi schooling, in the best interests of the child’s welfare, then both the LA and school must consider it.

9 Advantages

If it can be made to work, flexi schooling can allow all kinds of advantages for parent and child. It can 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. Primarily it offers a highly flexible education, responsive to the child’s individual needs and interests enabling the family to respond to opportunities as they arise in a way that schools would, at best, find challenging.

10 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 must be undertaken. 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. This issue must also be considered, and a solution found that works for all parties.
• 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 and be reluctant to allow flexischooling.
  
• 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 LA will often 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 LA. Ultimately the head teacher may decide that s/he does not want to antagonise the LA - who is after all their employer.
  
• Many school Head Teachers see Flexi schooling as a temporary arrangement as part of a staged return to school following some difficulty like school refusal (school phobia), a death in the family or an illness. They seem to fail to understand that, even when explicitly discussed, some families really do prefer home education/flexischooling to full time school and will continue to do so into the future.
• A number of schools resist agreeing to flexi schooling arrangements claiming that there are insurance problems particularly public liability insurance. This is a totally untrue. A child on authorised leave is the responsibility of the parent and not in the care of the school and thus not subject to the school insurance liability.
• New Advice from the DfE indicates that the DfE now believes Flexischooling to be illegal. However, this guidance was revised without consultation, contrary to civil service guidance.

11 How popular is Flexischooling?

Flexischooling has been around for some time. It was promoted by Roland Meighan back in the 1990s and HE UK web site carried an article about it from 2000. The DfE quoted from that page from 2003 in their guidance to home educators. Since then it has grown but not really taken off in the way that home education has. Although recently, (around 2015) CPE has offered assistance flexischooling has started to grow in popularity.

The publication of CPE's Flexischooling Handbook (published by EHP 201) has given it something of a further boost. The problem was that legal guidance was difficult to find. Head teachers could refuse to consider it, without giving a reason and local authorities were, and largely remain, ill informed about it. Despite these issues, by the end of 2019, the network knew of more than 60 schools supporting at least one child being flexischooled. With about one third of those with multiple children being flexischooled.

Some, remote, rural schools had realised that by highlighting flexischooling as an option attracted parents from a wider area often staving off the threat of closure while enabling expansion without major capital outlay. This is good for the school, the local community and all the children attending the school. Another driving force for flexischooling is the lack of adequate funding for SEN children.

Schools have been placed under tremendous pressure to perform while being starved of funding. This has led a number of schools to off-role children with special needs, particularly those waiting for assessments. Other schools have chosen to allow flexischooling as a way of addressing this problem. This appears to be a popular option among some parents while others see it as the best option among several poor choices.