How could I go about approaching a school re: flexi schooling?

[you]

I was wondering if anyone here has experience of part time/ flexi schooling (preferably state) and if so, how they went about approaching this with the school involved. Or indeed if you had planned this but were refused.

DD is only 16 months so we have lots of time to decide but we're thinking it through atm and feel very strongly that 4/5 yrs old is too young to start school. My ideal situation would be to HE her until she was about 7, then send her to school. However, there is exactly one good school near me, the rest are shocking. Aussuming there wouldn't be a place for her there in juniors (likely as the school is oversubscribed anyway), I was hoping a good solution to this may be to part time school her from the beginning- I was thinking to start with maybe 2 days in school, 3 days at home.

If not, then I guess our choices are HEing her until secondary age (I really don't fancy the idea of HE a teenager but never say never I guess) or sending her to school FT as normal. That is, if we get her into the only good school on distance, if not we'll be HE her as default anyway rather than send her anywhere else for now.

TIA

I know that not many schools agree to flexi schooling. We live in Torbay in Devon which is made up of three towns and only one school in all three towns agrees to flexi schooling. I'm not sure about private.

If you did home ed her until she was 7. I do think you'd still have to push her to learn to read and write, as from the age of 7 in schools, they have to have these skills to access the corriculum. If not, they'll be lagging behind for perhaps the rest of their primary school years. Of corse if you were to home ed for the whole of Primay school then this wouldn't be an issue and she could learn at her own rate.

My daughter is in school but will be home educated from December.

we looked into flexi schooling, but the school (private) was not that keen and only wanted to do it for reception. In the end we thought it would be the worst of both worlds; being 'different' at school, by only attending a few days a week and we would have to have followed the NC at home. Which meant she never went! Re teaching teenagers, the ones I have come across, through groups, have all been great and I think you just get used to having your child (children) around and the relationship between you changes over time, just as it does when they are younger, which means you are not teaching a teenager but just your child. Does that make sense?

HTH

OP - there are normally more places per year in schools from the junior years upwards.

This is because in KS1 (reception, Y1 and Y2) class sizes are a maximum of 30.

From juniors upwards they can be more than 30.

Have a look at your local schools and find out the admission numbers for each school.

You could then register the year before your DC turns 7.

Only just joined mumsnet so I know this is a bit out of date, but I find flexischooling great. My son spends 2 days per week at Educare Small School in Kingston which is very flexible about most things. Because it is small, and groups children by readiness, not age, it seems to work well (so far). It's also far cheaper than most independents, perhaps because you're not paying for sports fields, pools and science labs. I prefer to use specialist teachers at local clubs for sports (ballet, fencing, football), the local pool for swimming and my hob for a bunsen burner anyway! I've heard that Hampton Court House (set up by ex- Harrodian head I think) offers it too, in a more academic style, and local gossip suggests that more and more independents are offering it.