Alarm bells are ringing

Last week, we reported that Sir Martyn Oliver of Ofsted was increasingly worried about the rise of flexi-schooling.

Flexi-schooling permits students to attend school part-time while completing lessons, school work, and other educational activities at home.

Why are Ofsted worried?

The key concern for Sir Martyn Oliver and Ofsted is tracking and monitoring. While Sir Martyn concedes it is a "small number" of schools allowing 'flexi-schooling', the problem is how these instances are recorded.

Schools are recording instances of 'flexi-schooling' as authorised absences, which seems to be alarming Mr Oliver and Ofsted. 

Mr Oliver states that, based on a cross-reference of GP records from an Education Policy Institute and school records, up to 40,000 children aged between 5 and 15 are expected to attend school but are not attending. 

What are the hidden impacts?

Hearing that as many as 40,000 pupils are not attending school is frightening when we consider academic progress and the educational supervision that comes with being in the classroom. 

At Medical Tracker, we're just as concerned about the regular oversight from care professionals that these students could be missing. The pastoral and physical care delivered during school time is vital for many pupils. 

Many schools use Medical Tracker extensively, daily, to monitor the health and safety of children. Health and safety are more all-encompassing than noting a head bump or a playground fall. In most cases, our schools use our platform to monitor all mental and physical conditions of their pupils and staff, which is facilitated by consistent, regular attendance.

If students are sporadically attending school, it becomes increasingly difficult for schools to rely on paper methods to keep track of students' day-to-day safety, medication use, and longer-term conditions. 

Mr Oliver also highlighted the administration of EHCPs (Education Health and Care Plans) and the impact attendance has on children receiving these plans promptly. 

Some more digging

Schools Week has continued its investigations to understand the scale of flexi-schooling and what this means for headteachers, Ofsted, and students. 

The truth is that data on flexi-schooling is sparse, and government guidance stems from post-COVID guidance on home-schooling.

Lydia Chantler-Hicks of Schools Week reports that the popular Facebook group Flexischooling Families UK has a substantial membership, which sheds light on the scale of flexi schooling nationwide. For instance, the group's administrator states over 550 schools they know as practicing flexi-schooling. 

Our concerns

At Medical Tracker, alarm bells ring when we investigate why students or their families are requesting attendance flexibility in the first place. A Teacher Tapp survey commissioned by Schools Week cites:

1️⃣ Mental and physical health needs in the top three reasons for flexi-schooling, accounting for over 85% of all reasons.

Suppose a high proportion of students attend school on a part-time basis. In that case, we will find ourselves in a very difficult position regarding tracking and monitoring those mental and physical needs.

Not only will parents and their children need to be more responsible for communicating mental and physical health needs with teachers and schools, but the schools will also need to be more prepared to keep pace with the dynamic nature of flexi-schooling. 

Where does this all leave us?

Flexi-schooling delivers much-needed flexibility to many students who require a different approach to their learning environment. However, much more research is needed on how to maintain this flexibility while appropriately administering the correct level of coherent mental and physical care. 

At Medical Tracker, we won't hide from the position that our platform supports schools with a far more robust, communicative and compliant solution to health and safety. 

If your school is deliberating flexi-schooling or is simply tired with the pains of a paper-based method, we suggest you get in touch.