I currently Home Educate, Flexi School and School Educate my 3 children - AMA

[homeschoolED]

As the title says, I have one child in full time school, one child who is flexi schooled (part time in school and part time home educated) and one child in full time home education.

If you have any questions, ask away!

What’s the reason for a child to be flexi schooled and does it mean they go to school for half a day everyday, few times a week or to learn specific subjects?

How does your head not explode?!?

All kinds of different reasons but for us it's simply wanting to spend more time at home and to be able to do more home education.

We (primary age) do a couple of full days and 3 mornings at school but every arrangement can be different! In secondary I believe they are more likely to agree specific subjects.

It does sometimes but I think that's life with multiple children, jobs, pets

Did you have any teaching experience before taking this step?

Does the child who is at school full time have a significantly wider social circle than the others?

No teaching experience.

In terms of immediate friendship group they're all fairly similar numbers, though personality-wise they vary on how introverted or outgoing they are. Some enjoy socialising more than others!

What age group is each child involved?

What were the reasons for choosing each one? Was it child led, or your decision as parents?

How old are your children?

How did you get the school to agree to the flexi schooling, it must be difficult for them.
Is this something you or dc want? Am assuming one of you is a high earner to afford a parent at home all the time?

Child led though of course ultimately it's our decision as parents. One is at school GCSE age, home ed one is secondary age and flexi one is mid primary.

Do you work? Or have a partner financing this lifestyle?

Some schools are very anti-flexi and some are very positive and actually advertise it as something they offer - others fall somewhere in the middle. Our school is luckily fine with it.

We both work and are lower/middle earners I guess, working class jobs.

Waves in solidarity

One full-time in school and one flexi school here.
The right schooling arrangement for each child.

I also work, albeit part-time, flexible work. I end up working a lot in the evenings so I can be free when my child is home for flexi.

We both work, around 30-35 hours a week each so not quite full time and we have some flexibility in terms of self employment and working from home.

Yep absolutely, you have to do whatever suits your individual children rather than have some ideological view about what children should do in my opinion!

The easiest way is probably to find a school that actively offers or advertises itself as flexi school.
If you don't have one of those near you, then usually smaller schools or those with lower numbers are more likely to agree.
Ultimately it's just a case of meeting with the headteacher and pleading your case!
There's a very useful Facebook group, Flexischooling Families UK

So you work so how are you homeschooling?

Do you look into what is covered at school when your flexi-schooled child is at home to catch up? Or how does that work so that your child understands lessons when at school?

We're home educating so we're not tied to school days or times.
It tends to work out that our child does more independent stuff in the mornings while we're working and we do stuff together in the afternoons (there's only one afternoon a week that my partner and I both work), they also have evening activities and we have more free time together at weekends.

They are in school for all English and maths lessons and then we do broadly cover the same topics they would do in history/geography or science at home though not necessarily exactly the same work.

I'm curious as to what "qualifies" anyone to home educate. Is there some sort of standard curriculum to follow for home educating? What happens with GCSEs?

(Hoping I don't sound too snarky - that's not my intention 🙂)

Qualifications aren't needed and there's no standard curriculum you need to follow.
GCSEs are optional though most kids I know take some.

The only rules are that:
The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable - (a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and (b) to any special educational needs he may have, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.

Why did you choose to fully homeschool your second child? Do you not feel you are putting them at a disadvantage education and opportunity-wise compared to peers and older sibling? Particularly now at secondary level with the breadth and depth of subject knowledge qualified teachers can provide. Will you get tutors in to support?

How do you work 30-35hrs each and provide 30hrs of schooling to one child and 15hrs(?) to your flexi child too? Then also spend time together as a family and support eldest child with homework/ revision. What does a day actually look like? It seems that there would be a shortfall in the hours you could commit to any one of these things.

Unfortunately our local school isn't amazing - like many it's an academy, struggles to recruit and retain teachers, lots of cover supervisors and video lessons, discipline issues, narrow range of subjects offered. School definitely wouldn't suit the home educated child so no, I don't feel he is missing out. I definitely wish state education was a better option in this country though.

Home education isn't 30 hours 9am-3pm. We generally have 4 half days during the week with one or other parent off work. The home ed child also does group lessons, clubs, online lessons and tutoring while we work.

Every day is different but for example today:
Two children went to school in the morning, one went to a forest school, one parent went to the office and the other worked from home.
Office parent collected flexi and home ed kid at lunch time and we all had lunch together.
One parent wfh while home ed kid did an online language class then walked into town to go to a home ed activity.
One parent did some educational stuff with the flexi kid.
Teen stayed for a GCSE revision session after school.
We all had dinner together, now teen has gone to the gym and the others are chilling at home.