Please sign our flexischooling petition!

[flexischoolingUK]

Flexischooling is an arrangement where a child of compulsory school age is registered at school full time, but the school agrees the child can be educated at home for part of the week. Flexischooling is a full time education, just like full time school or full time home education. This is a legal option in England, Scotland and Wales, but isn’t very well known (even in schools).

In England and Wales, flexischooling, if agreed, is marked as Code C, authorised absence. The trouble with this is that code C still
affects the school’s attendance data, which can put schools off agreeing. Before 2019, Code B (educated offsite) was allowed and this code did not negatively impact attendance data.

In December 2024, the head of Ofsted, Sir Martyn Oliver, voiced the concern in his end of year report, that we have no way of knowing how many children are being flexischooled, as Code C is a generic authorised absence code, and it is impossible to differentiate between flexischooling absences and other authorised absences.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill proposes that flexischooling be managed by LAs. This seems like an inefficient and costly duplication of oversight and data retention, as flexischooling children are already registered at school full time, seen in school on a weekly basis, and schools are already recording attendance of flexischooling pupils on a twice daily basis!

We believe our proposal makes more sense logistically and financially. For schools to continue to manage flexischooling arrangements, but for a specific flexischooling code to be used (Code F) giving the government quantifiable data on the number of flexischooling children. Ideally, this code would not impact attendance data, as flexischooling pupils are legally receiving a full time education and it seems unnecessary for schools to be penalised for agreeing to a flexischooling arrangement in the best interests of a child. This is the current system in Scotland, flexischooling has no negative impact on attendance data.

We are aiming to reach 10,000 signatures to get a response from the government, but more than 10,000 would be a fantastic testament to the interest in flexischooling. We currently have at least 1 signature in all but 5 constituencies in the whole of the UK! It would be absolutely amazing to be able to say that every constituency in the UK had signed.

We are currently missing a signature in Nah-Eileanan an lar in Scotland, and 4 constituencies in Northern Ireland:

Mid Ulster - Mr Cathal Mallaghan MP

East Antrim - Rt Hon Sammy Wilson MP

Lagan Valley - Sorcha Eastwood MP

Belfast West - Paul Maskey MP

Whilst this petition isn’t directly aimed at Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales, signatures from these countries do count and the petition data will be available even after the petition ends, and could be used to demonstrate the high levels of interest in flexischooling in these countries.

And of course, if every single constituency signs, that’s a statement everyone in the UK can use, that this petition demonstrates the universal support for flexischooling in the UK, with every single constituency having signed! 🤞

Please consider taking 2 minutes to sign and verify your email (please check your junk/spam folder) as unverified emails do not count.

Thank you!

Happy to answer any question regarding flexischooling 🙂

Flexischooling petition link

Does that mean teachers have to turn up everyday not knowing if they’ll be 3 children or 30 children turning up to class?

Question: why do you want to flexi school? What's the benefit?

No, flexischooling is a pre-agreed arrangement, not an ad hoc situation. Parents request flexischooling and headteachers decide whether or not to agree. If agreed, a pattern of attendance is agreed and designed to minimise disruption to the class, for example, days at the end of the week are more commonly agreed than days at the beginning of the week.

Getting flexischooling agreed takes significant effort and research on the part of parents (and schools). It is not something that is entered into lightly.

How would it work for English and maths: subjects that carry over learning from one day to the next?
Is the teacher expected to provide the work for the child to continue at home? Or are they expected to catch the child up during their lunchtimes or after school? If so, I don’t support it - teachers are crazily over worked as it is.
Who will teach the child the content they have missed? I just don’t see how it would work academically. The child would also suffer socially at school with friendships.

Great question! There are lots of benefits of flexischooling, but parents choose flexischooling for a wide variety of reasons.

Some parents want to be actively involved in their child’s education (a lot of teachers and ex teachers are drawn to flexischooling).

Not all families are in the financial or logistical position to be able to home educate full time, but educating their child 1 or 2 days a week can be a perfect balance!

Flexischooling is also commonly requested for children with SEN/ALN/ASN. For some children, full time school is not accessible, but children and families still want to access a school based education. For some children, learning at home for part of the week helps them to regulate, allowing them to access school and cope, when that was not possible full time. This can also be true for children struggling with medical needs or mental health challenges.

Schools generally know about part-time timetables, however the rules of part-time timetables is that these should be used for the shortest amount of time possible. A part-time timetable is not legally considered to be a full time education, and so there is always pressure to get a child back into full time school. This is not the case with flexischooling, as it is legally a full time education.

There are a great many other reasons, but these are some of the main ones 🙂

How does it work for group work/project work where the children need to work with partners?

This.
Sounds like a recipe for absolute chaos.
In or out, op. You can’t have your cake and eat it.

Absolutely not. This is chaos. You should either be in or out.

Poor teachers. Just when I thought the job couldn’t sound any worse . . .

Agree, it sounds very much like 'my child's needs and my wants are paramount and everyone else must fit around them' poor teachers in this circumstance!

I deal with school attendance in a primary school. I’ve never heard of this.

No way
It would be so difficult to implement in a classroom
A nightmare for teachers
Nope

One of the difficulties is whether schools are still accountable for data eg SAT scores while only being able to teach the child for part of the curriculum. It makes sense that it could work for some children with SEN and that some of these children may have poor attendance anyway but a lot needs to be ironed out for it to work fairly for schools and pupils.

Supposing the Geography lessons are at the end of the week, they miss Geography?.

Yes, absolute chaos. Who has missed what part of learning? How do you bridge the gap?

Oh @Oldermumofone you KNOW anything that would go wrong or not be positive would be the teacher/schools fault....even if the child was only at school 0.5 days a week!! 😆

Nah. Sounds like a clusterfuck waiting to happen.

Like a pp said, in or out. We should be looking at cancelling this nonsense not expanding it.

And a way for people who want to harm children to have a legitimate way of doing it. ‘Oh it’s okay, every Thursday and Friday they are flexi schooled’ I.e made to stay at home to care for someone and no questions are asked. Or worse to be shipped around the country, again no questions asked because they’re never in school on Thursdays or Fridays and the Headteacher has agreed!
Needless to say I won’t be signing and hopefully you won’t get to 10,000 signatures so children can be kept safe from harm.

Not a chance.

And, imo, there needs to be more regulation and check ups of children who are being home educated too.

Exactly Captain Future! And no doubt there would be pressure on teachers to provide detailed planning so that it could be followed at home.

I would agree with this. Children need more protection, not less.

Yes, of course it's going to hit the teachers!

This. It would be completely unworkable in my school.

These are very common concerns about flexischooling.

Flexischooling is discretionary, and the timetable is agreed in such a way as to minimise any disruption. For example, in Primary schools, afternoons or days at the end of the week are most commonly agreed.

Legally, the National Curriculum doesn’t ‘necessarily’ apply to the home part of flexischooling, though that may be a stipulation of the headteacher when agreeing. Teachers are not expected to plan or provide the work for parents, though as part of planning a flexischooling arrangement the parent and school will liaise and discuss what content would be missed at the times the child would be educated at home. If the headteacher asks the parents to cover the same skills and knowledge at home, then it is up to the parent to research and deliver this at home, but it does not have to look like school. It is absolutely possible to teach the same skills in a different way, just as no classroom in the country (even within the same year group and within the same school) do not teach identically. Every teacher and every combination of pupils brings a different dynamic. Different does not equate to inferior.

We see a lot of teachers and ex teachers interested in flexischooling. Whilst some children are flexischooling the teacher has smaller class sizes and the opportunity to give more specialist attention to other pupils. In polls in our facebook group, Flexischooling Families UK, the vast majority of parents reported that their child did not fall behind their peers academically, and over half responded that their child was exceeding expectations academically. Flexischooling children often benefit from 1-1 tailored support through flexischooling.

Flexischooling arrangements should definitely be arranged to minimise adding to teachers’ workloads.

There are schools that take a whole school flexischooling approach. I’m aware of 1 school where 83% of the pupils are flexischooled.

It’s not the right model for all children, but it’s a little known option that can be the best of both worlds for some 🙂

Oh yep, and they would be told to.give this precedence over planning for or teaching the kids in the classroom or the howls of "discrimination!!' Would erupt. 🤨