Anyone flexi-schooling anywhere?

[mystery]

I once had permission for a year 1 child and it wasn't special needs either. From my perspective school just wasn't really working for her on lots of fronts for a while and having a day at home a week working with me worked a treat. Don't know how I swung it with school - just wrote them a letter full of waffle and compliments and I got a yes. I don't think it is so easy now - mostly because the changes the DfE have made to their various bits of confusing advice to schools.

The assumption by the DfE seems to be that a child's progress is always going to be greater if they are in school 5 days a week. For lots of reason, that's not always the case. If your child is getting the equivalent of one to one tuition at home why would it be? It's hard for any school, no matter how great, to beat that.

KCG, how did you explain your reasons to the school without it sounding like you were not happy that the year 6 teacher wasn't providing some challenge for your son?

[kenyancowgirl]

We had been misled massively by the head (in writing and in various meetings) and the head had also misled the Governors and other teachers as to what plans had been put in place - the reality was "nothing" - so really she didn't have a leg to stand on. We set it all up over the summer holidays and met with the head the first day back of Y6. We had absolutely no issue with the Y6 teacher who was, in our opinion, the strongest teacher in the school. We met with the Y6 teacher and explained our reasoning behind it. Although it made life slightly more complicated for the teacher, we felt that they were behind us - particularly as we had regular meetings to ensure there were no real issues. We were always prepared to change the day out if the school were doing something where they thought DS1 should be in and I think that flexibility on our part helped.

Certainly, in my experience, when Ofsted came - the first thing they wanted to look at was the flexischooling, talking to me and looking at the sorts of things DS1 had done and the "paper trail" we had created for the school/us to monitor progress. They were delighted with the whole thing and could see real benefits - to the point that they queried why the school wasn't working with me to introduce it as a scheme to work with all the gifted and talented children as an interesting enrichment type activity. (It was low-cost/high impact but obviously utilised my time.)

I think if you are clear what you want to achieve (and certainly it was nothing to do with "better" SATs results or "entry to private school exams" for us, but extension/enrichment that used the curriculum type lessons but in real life situations and improved communication with a range of people) and put it to the school in those terms, then they may not be threatened by it. However, I will say this - we felt we had no choice, having been forced into doing something as the head had really let us down. It is not a solution to my mind - a good teacher will happily differentiate the lesson to accommodate the pupils - the Y6 teacher we had could actually do that really well but even he felt that DS1 had had a lot of experiences and opportunities that would have been hard for the teacher to accommodate.

[KB]

I'm sure you are right that good parental time will provide experiences that can't be provided in the class room but generally ( & obviously as in this case there are exceptions) shouldn't this be happening outside of the normal school day?
If all parents started taking their children out of school for a day a week to do other things how would the teachers cope?
I can see how this works for individual children but don't see how it is viable if significant numbers start doing it.

[mystery]

I wouldn't see significant numbers of parents wanting to do it at most schools and, in any case, the school can say no on a case by case basis. It doesn't sound as though KCG or his/her child caused any extra work for the teacher by not sending him into school one day a week. It was probably less individualised planning needed as a result by the sounds of it.

[KB]

I wasn't commenting on a particular case because that would be too personal and in any case I'm not in any position to do so.
My query was more general and arose partly from the impression that OFSTED seemed to think it should be expanded.

[kenyancowgirl]

...expanded within the school....ie it could have been adapted as a very successful project, working with a specific group of able students, or indeed all students, with very little money and just a small budget, to be a great enrichment opportunity. I think even Ofsted are not particularly impressed by schools who get reams and reams of children through with high level sats but they are impressed with schools that think outside of the box and can do things that extend the curriculum in a meaningful way.

And mystery is right - significant numbers of parents are never going to do this, in the same way that significant numbers of parents are never going to home educate. It is hard work - probably more so than home educating as you are having to keep two systems going successfully. The facility to flexi-school has been around a long time - parents choose not to do it and I don't see numbers increasing anytime soon.

And of course good parental time should take place alongside/outside the school day...in the same way that good teaching should take place in the school day - but we all know that this doesn't always happen...and it is particularly hard when you have a head that lies to parents, teachers and governors (and, incidentally, is no longer in post as a head). Flexi-schooling doesn't have to be a day a week - it could be more or less - it could be a term out to travel, for example - it all depends on the agreement with the head - which all boils down to what the parent is hoping to achieve from the experience.

[mystery]

It is a pity that it is much harder for a school to say yes now without potentially undesirable consequences I.e. An impact on absence statistics