Flexi-schooling can be a perfect home-school compromise: children have access to specialist educators and resources they might not have at home plus they can join in parts of the timetable such as PE. They get opportunities to work and socialise with their own peer group, and will have the chance to join in with activities such as school trips and plays. For parents, it potentially means they can work part-time.

 

Children who have difficulties attending school full-time, for example because of illness or emotional or behavioural needs, have the opportunity to follow a reduced timetable but without being removed from the school environment altogether – a big advantage for parents who hope that, eventually, their child will be able to return to normal education.

 

It allows parents to spend more time with their children, and could give them the opportunity to learn about a subject in greater depth than if they were in the classroom, with more field trips and one-to-one attention.

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For younger and less mature children, it can also be useful in giving them more time to adjust to full-time education.

 

Children who are recovering from a long illness can return to school again on a gradual basis. And it helps children who were previously home-schooled make a phased returned into the classroom.

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The success of flexi-schooling depends on you and the school being able to work closely together. 

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Here are some of the many reasons why parents choose flex-schooling: 

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• Ideological or philosophical views

• Religious or cultural beliefs

• Dissatisfaction with the school system, or the school which the child attends

• Bullying of the child at school

• Health reasons, particularly mental health of the child

• As a short term intervention for a particular reason

• A child’s unwillingness or inability to go to school

• Special educational needs, or a perceived lack of suitable provision in the school system for those needs

• Disputes with a school over the education, special needs or behaviour of the child, in some cases resulting in ‘off-rolling’.

• Familial reasons which have nothing to do with schools or education (e.g. using older children educated at home as carers)

• As a stop-gap whilst awaiting a place at a school other than the one allocated 

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