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The Relationships Foundation, in collaboration with Bishop Grosseteste University, 20/20health and two education sector partners, is undertaking ground-breaking research into flexischooling children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

We are seeking to conduct policy-informing research into educational and social-emotional outcomes associated with flexischooling children with SEND. We believe that understanding such outcomes is vitally important for SEN/Disability rights. This will be the first academic research of its kind in the UK.

We are encouraged that Grant Making Trusts have already contributed £2,500 to this research project. We hope more Trusts will follow.

The full cost of the project is £11,400. It becomes viable at around £8,500, though this would mean adding in extra volunteering time. If we surpass full project costs, it will enable us to give more time to the dissemination of findings with stakeholders and policymakers.

Our Just Giving target is approximately one third of full research project costs - £3,700. If we exceed that, we will get to project implementation all the more quickly.

We would hugely appreciate your support - these are very challenging times for vulnerable children, especially those at risk of emotional distress, anxiety-based school avoidance and exclusion.

If you want to understand more about this project, please read on. Otherwise, thanks for reading this far!

(PLEASE NOTE: Whilst my fundraising activities are voluntary, I (Jon Paxman) may be paid in part as coordinator on this project, subject to funds raised.)

BACKGROUND: Flexischooling is a collaborative arrangement between schools and parents where a child is registered at school but attends only part of the time; the rest of the time the child is home-educated.

A significant proportion of parental requests for flexi-schooling are made for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND, England), Additional Learning Needs (ALN, Wales) or Additional Support Needs (ASN, Scotland).

This remains a rare arrangement in the UK. Many schools and trusts deny parental requests for flexi-schooling, or simply have outright flexischooling bans, not least because the arrangement affects schools’ attendance figures.

However, flexischooling as a special needs (or ‘additional needs’) intervention has been reported by some parents as their child’s lifeline to remaining in formal education. These are often neurodivergent children (e.g. with autism, ADHD, severe dyslexia) who, despite in-school supports, have found the full-time school environment overwhelming. Many have suffered depression, anxiety and conduct disorder and have previously been 'school refusers'.

So-called ’school refusal’ often derives from a child’s crippling anxiety, even trauma, caused by sensory and social-emotional overload (sometimes compounded by bullying) in the full-time school environment. Many neurodivergent children crave the opportunity for ‘downtime’ and ‘alone-time’ in a safe space, and for most this means the home. Parents have reported that with a flexible timetable, allowing for home-based periods of learning or downtime, the child has a chance to decompress, reset and recharge for the next school day.

What of SEND/ASN/ALN research on full-time school attendance?

There is no evidence in the literature that, with the ‘right adjustments’, full-time attendance in school, 32.5 hours per week, serves the best interests of all children with SEND/ASN/ALN. (Indeed, there is no evidence that all such children have the necessary capacity for full-time school attendance.)

What evidence does show, however, is that the current education system with its targets-driven agenda (including attendance targets) is failing far too many disadvantaged children:

1. According to the DfE (2018), pupils with identified SEN account for around 15% of all pupils, yet they make up nearly 50% of all children who face permanent or fixed-period exclusions;

2. State schools across the UK saw a 71% increase in permanent exclusions between 2012 and 2019;

3. Research by YouGov/Ofsted (2019) indicates that illegal off-rolling of SEN pupils is on the increase, “triggered by league table position”.

OUR OBJECTIVE

In partnership with Bishop Grosseteste University, we are seeking to conduct first-of-its-kind academic research into educational, social-emotional, behavioural and developmental outcomes associated with flexischooling children with SEND/ALN/ASN in the UK.

Survey-based research with parents and schools from England, Wales and Scotland will be undertaken with the support of the think tank 20/20health, a UK autism organisation, and a charity specialising in support for personalised education arrangements.

The aim is to (1) understand the reasons why parents of children with SEND/ASN/ALN seek flexischooling arrangements; 2) understand representative conditions/disabilities in the flexischooling population; and (3) capture both parent and (head)teacher perceptions of children’s SEND flexischooling outcomes.

Though we have a research hypothesis, we do not know what the research will reveal. But it is a matter of SEN/ASN/ALN and disability rights that educators, charities, local authorities and policy-makers understand where the outcomes evidence is pointing. Research findings will be published in a peer-reviewed journal relevant to education and disability. This academic research will be the first of its kind in the UK - and possibly in the world.

For more information...

If you would like to learn more about flexischooling and SEND in the UK, then check out our report from 2022, co-published with 20/20health. Copy and paste the link below:

https://relationshipsfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Relationships_Foundation_review_Flexischooling.pdf