Part Time Home Ed?

[Tinfoil]

Is there such a thing as part time HE, with the child attending school say 2 days a week?

[ommmward]

yes, it's called flexischool - google that :-)

It's pretty rare, because it's in the gift of the head teacher - if they think it's a good idea then you're ok, but they can veto it if they are not up for it.

[Tinfoil]

Thanks ommmward

[pooter]

yes! i know a little boy - now 7 who did flexi schooling - just mornings i think, as he wasnt emotionally ready for whole days. I think he did it for a year, then decided he wanted whole days.

[piscesmoon]

I think that flexi schooling gives the worst of both worlds. The rest are all there while your DC isn't and it is very difficult for the DC on the friendship level, unless they are very confident, sociable and popular.

[slowreadingprogress]

I guess it could be the worst of both but I know of one school where they are specifically set up for this sort of flexible arrangement, so the child would not be in that position of not being there with everyone else there full time. It's the New Forest Small School. No good if you're not in the area of course!

I don't know it at all, just through googling one day, but maybe there are other schools like this. Personally that's what I'd look for if I wanted flexibility rather than looking for flexibility within the state system. However, who is to say that could not work. It would have to be a one in a million arrangement but it could!

[slowreadingprogress]

I mean, I work part time and consider this the best of both worlds

[piscesmoon]

It would work fine if they were all flexi schooling-unfortunately they are all getting on with their collective lives and one DC is missing. A class gels together, for example a teacher can make 'in' jokes and one DC doesn't understand-however hard they try it tends to exclude. I teach part time and that is the best of both worlds, to me, but it is a completely different experience.

[slowreadingprogress]

I dunno pisces. I mean, I'm part time but my team at work is gelled. I don't feel excluded in any way. I get the in jokes. Do you have part time pupils then? I bow to your experience if so...but I still think that in a small, alternative school set up for this method, that there's no reason this couldn't work. I'm not talking about the 'one DC is missing' scenario as I said in the previous post - I'm thinking about alternative type education anyway.

I have a great friend at work, I see her less often than we would if I was full time but it makes not one bit of difference when we DO get together.

[piscesmoon]

As a teacher it is a different experience. I am doing a job that suits me and fits in with my life style, I'm not looking for it to provide friendship. You can sometimes miss out on things that people thought you knew but you had missed, but you tend to get passed on the important things. It is nice if it is friendly, but if it isn't I can just eat a sandwich and work through breaks. It isn't like being a pupil, I don't need to eat my lunch with someone and I don't have to go out in the playground hoping that someone will talk to me. I am doing the teaching and know what happened when I wasn't there so I'm not the one mystified by the maths because I missed Tues and Wed and Thurs makes no sense without those lessons.I'm never the one who starts a project late and finds that I am put in the group with the least number of people and they have already started practical work and I didn't have any choice because I wasn't there.
A small alternative school, set up to work in a part time way for all pupils, would work fine. I think that if you try and do it mainstream then for you to be flexible, you are wanting the rest to have a rigid timetable, which isn't fair. For example I can see that the flexi pupil may have arranged to be in on Tues mornings for maths but the class were engrossed in topic work on Monday afternoon and the teacher wants to go straight on with it on Tues morning while they are all keen, this is no problem for everyone else, they can do maths in the afternoon. However it is a problem with the flexi DC because they are going at lunch time and won't get the maths-worse than that they are not doing the topic because it isn't 'their day' and so they are 2 weeks behind, have no book, no resources and not a clue what is going on.
It could work if it is a very alternative school, e.g. one I know, that do their own timetable and as long as they are there on a Monday for input they can do it when they like-they could even carry on at home if they wanted or it would work in a very traditional school where they work to a timetable that is set in stone and so if you are going in for maths on a Tues at 9am, you know that that is what they will be doing.
It could work in reception-but gets more difficult after that.
My nephews did it for GCSE and it worked brilliantly for the lessons, they got on well with the other pupils-the problem came at break when the others met up with friends in different lessons who didn't know my nephews at all-that is where you get left high and dry unless you are a very confident DC-it is a nightmare for the shy.
I think that to go for flexi schooling is a misunderstanding of what schools are about-it isn't just the lessons. It is better to throw yourself whole heartedly into school or HE, IMO-(speaking as a once very shy DD).
Setting up a small school of your own run on flexi lines would be the best of both worlds.

[Tinfoil]

Interesting replies, thank you.