Talk to me about flexi schooling

[mrsshears]

I have a gifted 5yr old dd whom i would love to be able to home educate,unfortunatly i work part time so this would not be possible.
Can anyone tell me how flexi schooling works?
From what i know it sounds like it could be a good option for dd,but are schools open to this or not?
DD learns far better at home but seems to dumb down at school and become even more introvert than she is already,whereas at home she is as keen to learn as ever.
I also feel school are holding dd back,but thats a whole other thread.
I would be keen to hear anyone experiences of flexi schooling

thanks in advance

Hi,
My DD is 6 and we just started flexi in June (was HE before then)
It is entirely legal and it is up to the individual head teacher as to whether they will allow you to. We do 3 days at present, no particular days yet, I need to speak to the teacher so we can decide which days sound the most fun, we are using school mainly for the social aspect and goup activities rather than the academic side of things.
In fact another mum has just dropped her DD from full-time to 3 days too, we're starting a trend lol!!
Feel free to ask me any more questions :0

I have no firsthand experience. I have heard that it is wise to have all your ducks in a row before approaching the headteacher - find out as much as you can about how it can work and have a proposal in mind which addresses any likely concerns the school may have. Apparently the trouble is that "no" is the easier answer. If you get a negative answer in the first instance then it may be harder to get the head to change his or her mind than if you are very persuasive in the first place before the decision has been made, if you see what I mean.

Flexischooling isn't wildly popular with many schools, who fear that it will be inconvenient and disruptive. Some will agree to it, but may see it as a temporary arrangement. You'll always be at the mercy of changes of mind or changes of staff. Still, it couldn't hurt to come up with a plan and ask. Some people do it.

Are your working hours set in stone? If so, that may be awkward since you won't be able to conform to the school's schedule and do what is most expedient educationally and also convenient for them.

As you may know, the school gets full-time funding for flexischooled children (they count as "educated off-site") so that may make the prospect somewhat easier to sell!

Perhaps another option would be home ed and using a childminder while you are at work? If you are eligible for Tax Credits you can use the childcare element of that to subsidise childcare with a qualifying provider.

Thank you both very much for your replies.

I would be using school mainly for the social aspect too hippymum,i'm going to see how year 1 goes before i approach the head(basically just so i can say i have given it a chance iyswim),who i have a feeling will not be keen.
DD is really not the same child at school as she is at home and i really dont think she is suited to that kind of learning enviroment.

I've done it briefly.

I think it works best if they go in all morning or all afternoon rather than for 3 days, because they normally cover a topic over a whole week, so you'll be missing half of every topic.

Whereas in the morning they normally do maths and literacy, and in the afternoon they normally do all the other topics....

Of course your school might be different. But that is the most usual set up (I think)

Indigobell funny you should say that, we have decided to do 5 mornings to see how that goes, I guess it takes a while to tweak it to get the best out of the situation

If you're doing it for the social side of things you're probably better doing afternoons rather than mornings.....

Afternoons they do art and music and science and history and pe and......

I was thinking that but then it does disrupt the whole day!! It would be good if the school could swap their way round to suit us lol!!
I wish we had a Steiner school here :(

Similar thing here. We ( DW and I) have elected to Home Ed. I'd love a flexi school too but I approached a couple of schools nearby and neither would accept it, one said it wasnt legal, the other felt it would be disruptive to DS if we approached it that way.

So we Home Ed until he is 7. Then consider the options in prep. 'Fraid, given what I am seeing of more and more local primaries, it is going to be a prep.