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

@legoplaybook all any of us have is anecdotes. Are the experiences of others irrelevant to you? Do they not mean anything? That’s rather strange.

Interesting - I remember mentioning to my son's year 2 teacher that I was trying to correct his grammar as he was saying "could of" instead of "could have" and that he was arguing against it because he had been taught this at school - that qualified teacher then tried to tell me that "could of" was perfectly fine!!!

@Calmdownpeople

There’s no an easy answer systematically, because all of these things are linked to each other and also larger environmental and cultural issues. Some can be easily identified, other less so. There are definitely more children with SEN in mainstream classrooms now than there were 30 years ago, which can increase the workload for teachers and TAs significantly even in the number of students stays the same.

Whether 30 children is “too many” can depend on which children are in the class and their individual levels and needs. Some classrooms might have children both years ahead and years behind their peers, so in a reception class you could very easily have a spread in terms of learning or development that spans 4-5+ “years.” You can have some children that are still learning to speak alongside other children that already know how to read. Meeting all of those needs at once is very hard and the current curriculum is not designed for it.

I’m pleased to see it advertised if it is indeed possible within Wales, but it’s interesting to see that in a school of 40 pupils, flexischooling wasn’t mentioned in their most recent Estyn inspection. I’d hardly say that makes it well established.

Flexi schooling is never going to be something the majority of children do, or even lots of children - most of the schools that agree flexi schooling only have a handful of children that do it, if that.
It's not a threat to standard schooling. But it is a legal option for all schools.

My point about my son having less support while I applied for an EHCNA is that the effort involved in applying for an EHCNA is immense, especially if you are doing it as a parental request, and I simply don't have the energy to do that and also support my son at school in the other ways that I do. So if I put my energy into the EHCNA, I could take my eye off the ball with respect to his day to day needs and I can't afford to do that.
Full disclosure - I live in Surrey - have you seen how abysmal that LEA is? They let children down left, right and centre - I'm afraid I don't trust them - maybe other LEAs are better and I know lots of kids get good support from their EHCPs - I'm glad that yours do. In the meantime flexischooling works well for my son and his school - I just wish it didn't impact their attendance stats negatively - they're sort of penalised for acting in my son's best interests.

Amazing how many posts are all about the teachers. While this should be a factor to consider, the fact is that schools exist for the benefit of children and education needs to be designed in a way that is accessible for all children. The current “one size fits all” approach with 5 days per week in enormous, loud classes with little tailoring of curriculum, teaching methods or environment to meet different children’s needs is an absolute failure.

That isn’t teachers’ fault, of course. But their time would be better spent lobbying the Government to introduce an appropriate education system so that there are a variety of appropriate schools for all children to attend without the need for so many adaptions/ adjustments, rather than attacking parents and calling them “entitled” or “selfish” for trying to access the perfectly legal and minimal support currently available to make it possible for their child to actually learn something and not end up with their health destroyed by “the system”.

Squeezing square pegs into round holes and refusing support/ gaslighting parents for acting in their children’s best interests as best they can within a useless, broken system has run its course and it simply won’t improve things for children or teachers (let alone parents. Do you really think parents want to have to fight with schools or Local Authorities or have children unable to attend school full time?!).

The education system is broken and it needs fundamentally redesigning to that all children can flourish. This means many different types of schooling and a large variety of schools. The current system might work well for the 25% of children that it is designed for, if it wasn’t for the other 75% who shouldn’t be there. Some have physical health issues that aren’t properly catered for. Some have mental health issues that are ignored. Some have learning disabilities and will never meet the “baseline standard” and would thrive far better not focusing on the national curriculum. Some are highly academic but need smaller class sizes and a calm, quieter, less busy and more nurturing environment and a higher staff to child ratio but a faster pace of learning and literally no state school exists to meet their needs. Some need a far more practical focus so they aren’t made to feel stupid by being forced throughout childhood to focus on academic skills when they have skills in other areas. Some have talents at music and art and sport that are never properly developed or even discovered. Others have an obvious exceptional talent in one area of academic study yet waste much time being forced to do more than the basics in others rather than develop their exceptional ability. And the presence of this 75% in the factory farming system that tries to pretend everyone is a clone means that most of the 25% of children for whom the current system would work can’t learn to their potential, either.

Anybody who wants UK Education to improve and the country to have any long-term future which isn’t a further decline in living standards should be lobbying the Education Secretary to overhaul the entire thing and double the funding for it, redirecting some of the 40% of public spending that goes on the elderly (the wealthiest cohort in society with the highest average incomes AND wealth) towards the young. Instead, this idiotic woman wants to double down on an already failed system and make it even worse. Children are being failed and it is horrendous to see that people who have chosen education as a career are attacking children and parents for trying to use legal routes to enable their children to receive at least some education rather than campaigning for fundamental changes to the appalling system that is causing the problem in the first place.

Schools don’t work for 75% of children??

They don't seem to be working for 75% of teachers either based on this thread - all the ones that haven't quit already are teetering on the brink of nervous breakdowns, totally overwhelmed without a spare 5 minutes in their week.

I don’t believe 75% of children are meeting their full potential through this system, no. In fact I think an even lower percentage than 25% are doing so: the 25% for which current teaching methods and environment would be suitable have it disrupted because of the 75% who would be better in a different environment: either remote learning, or flexi-schooling, or in a school more focused on a different learning style, or a school with a different environment with smaller classes, or a school that is more or less academic, or a school that focused more on their specific ability + core subjects etc.

And as @legoplaybooknoted it doesn’t seem to be working for teachers, either, does it?

So why don’t teachers join with parents to lobby the Government to change this, radically, rather than attacking parents?

One of the main reasons that teachers’ jobs appear to have become so unpleasant and challenging is precisely because of this “one size fits all approach” which has never and will never work. The Education Secretary’s proposals will make this worse for children AND teachers. It is driven by cost cutting and Local Authority lobbying to reduce children’s rights so that they can pretend the problem doesn’t exist. Anybody who thinks things will be improved for children or teachers by having even more unmet needs in the current system and no possible route to get them met as she’s proposing (rather than the traumatic, expensive, stressful appalling and drawn out method currently available via EHCPs to get them at least partially met and funded while damaging children immensely - and their teacher and the learning of others in their class - for several years while Local Authorities obstruct this) is delusional.

It would be in teachers’ interests to speak up very robustly about this alongside the parents who are doing so otherwise the current travesty failing the majority of children is about to get a whole lot worse.

The system is designed, in my view, to create opposition between schools and parents over scarce resources with Local Authorities behaving illegally as a deliberate matter of policy to ensure children’s legal rights to an appropriate education are circumvented, to everyone’s detriment. Instead teachers could recognise common cause and stand together with parents to fight this and actually change things for the better and force the Government out of their plan to trash things further for both teachers and children.

@InsomniacSloth

Idon’t actually think there are many teachers on this thread criticising the flexischooling option. Based on the comments it seems it’s generally members of the public who have little direct experience in schools aside from having been students/parents themselves.

@SuperSue77 as I said, that is, of course, your choice.

My point wasn’t about the pros and cons of any of the options. Neither did I say parents can’t or shouldn’t be allowed to flexischool or that going down the EHCP &/or s19 provision route was/should be compulsory.

Full-time EHE is a legitimate choice. As is flexischooling. As is full-time school. As is part-time school as well as other provision made by the LA. As is no school and all provision being EOTAS/EOTIS.

My point was parents need to know about all options and perpetuating a myth that DC unable to attend school full-time will always be pressured to return to full-time school isn’t helpful and doesn’t help the flexischooling cause.

Parents can get EHCPs even if Surrey. Yes, parents may have to appeal and then enforce provision. That isn’t unique to SCC. Ultimately, it isn’t the LA making the decision.

Flexischooling is a great idea! Love the sound of it! Have signed the petition - thank you for raising awareness!

The basic problem with homeschooling and flexi schooling is that there is too much variation and completely inadequate monitoring.

I don’t think anyone would argue that there are situations (SEN, mental/physical health problems) in which a different model from traditional schooling would be beneficial.

However, in my experience the home educators can be divided roughly into 2 groups - those who are motivated, and provide a solid education for their kids, and those who choose to “home educate” because they can’t be arsed to get out of bed in the morning to get their kids to school, and they can’t be bothered to deal with the rules (uniform, timing, homework, attendance etc). The latter group are seemingly unmonitored and unchecked, and are letting down their children terribly. Many of us know of cases of bright NT kids who have zero qualifications because their parents “home educated” them.

If home educating is to continue, then in my opinion it should be far more rigorously checked.

I think you are confusing EHE and flexi schooling.
With flexi schooling the headteacher still retains responsibility.

I feel sorry for the DC missing out on whole chunks of their education, it could be really hard to follow topics through when you have only seen bits of it, as well as the impact on teachers.

I think we need to consider the primary issue that is trying to be resolved here (which I am not quite clear on by OP's posts).
Is it poor provision for children with additional learning needs? If so, I get that is a major issue currently and think this is worthy of campaigning about, though campaign for better provision, not for parents to take over their education.
The other reason seems to be 'parents want to be more involved' - that's not a good enough reason IMO.

Ah, I see. That would make more sense. That is another problem with the system as it is, I suppose: the underfunding and inappropriate arrangements and impossibility of schools accessing appropriate support for children who need it (and even underfunding of it when an EHCP is obtained, often after years of deliberate Local Authority obstruction) will of course cause resentment among parents who haven’t had to deal with this and don’t understand the horrendous things that go on and see their own child’s education being negatively impacted as a result.

As with the teachers and the parents of children with SEND, if such parents see their children being failed by this system, their children’s education being disrupted by children who are not in the right school, then the best way to solve this would be to stand up with the parents of children with SEND and with teachers so that all demand that the Government starts to fund education properly so that every child can go to a school in which they can thrive because this will benefit their children immensely as well: happier teachers, calmer environments, and focused learning that suits their own children, SEND or not.

I think the whole thing seems to have been devised based on “divide and conquer” and if we could all take a step back and recognise how all children are being failed by this and that the only solution that will work is the Government making a far wider variety of schools easily available for all children depending on their needs/ talents/ abilities/ interests then the Government would be forced to change this. While people are encouraged to squabble amongst themselves and blame each other the status quo will continue, and be allowed to get even worse which is terrible for all children (and teachers! And wider society in terms of outcomes in the long term).

I’d be interested to hear views from teachers on how - if, for example the national education budget was doubled (it really isn’t outside the realms of what’s possible, it’s £95bn out of £1.3trn of spending currently, for education at all levels, which is a national disgrace) they envisage a better education system would look. It doesn’t seem that the Government has the capability to do this kind of thinking. There’s no point starting from where we are and tinkering around the edges of something that has manifestly failed. Teachers are miserable, children are being failed spectacularly.

So if we start from a blank page and designing an education system from scratch, that can accommodate children and enable them all to learn to their potential, what do teachers think it should look like? Then, within the realms of what can be spent on it (which is much more than is currently spent, but obviously not unlimited) it is possible to work out priorities and what can and should be done to get as close to that as possible.

Sorry @flexischoolingUK I realise this slightly sidetracks from the purpose of your post so perhaps I should start my own on the topic in my final post.

I have signed your petition, by the way.

I think you can trust schools to consider the child's overall education when making these agreements.

@legoplaybook I feel like you are deliberately misunderstanding everything I post. I’m obviously talking in general terms about situations in which a significant proportion of educating occurs at home.

Supporters of flexi schooling have gone to great lengths to say that the teachers aren’t inconvenienced in any way, implying that they just have to teach the kids on the days they’re in school, and trust the parents on the other days. Now you’re saying that the school remains fully responsible for the child’s education.

They aren’t missing out, the parent is providing education at home when they are not in the classroom. The school has the right to end the agreement at anytime if they feel it is not working, and I assume they would if they felt the home education time was hindering the child’s learning overall.

I think there are a range of reasons parents and school decide that flexischooling might be the best option. Poor provision for learning seems to be part of the issue for many. Students with SEN suffer disproportionately so it is not surprising many families who flexischool do have children with SEN. However, the provision is poor and underfunded generally, so all students could benefit from a better provision. Some parents feel flexischooling allows them to provide additional learning in ways school cannot.

Campaigning for a better provision overall is great but if you are the parent of a child who is currently in school you need a solution right now.

Yes, the school retains overall responsibility and the headteacher decides how the agreement works and what is covered at home, what oversight there is, and how it is organised so as not to impact on the class teacher's workload.

This is different to home education where the parent has full responsibility and the local authority just establishes a suitable education takes place. The LA cannot dictate what or how the parent educates.

Headteachers are generally well qualified and experienced individuals and are more than capable of deciding if and how the flexi schooling arrangement works. I think some posters need to have a bit more faith in teachers.

The op will never address this excellent point.

100%.

Why are you replying with AI ?