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Find advice from other parents on our Homeschool forum. You may also find our round up of the best online learning resources useful.

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Find advice from other parents on our Homeschool forum. You may also find our round up of the best online learning resources useful.

Home ed

Home educating for a few weeks a year when we go "home" - would that be flexi-schooling?

83 replies

gaelicsheep · 25/10/2012 23:12

I've trawled the net and haven't found any reference to this specific type of situation. All I've found is stuff about home educating for part of each week, or stuff applicable to travellers which we're not (although we feel like it sometimes!). Has anyone done this? Pros and cons?

I also read about dual registration, but in our case one school would be in England/Wales and the other in Scotland and DC would be jumping between years, so I think perhaps not the best idea!

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Colleger · 25/10/2012 23:34

If its only a few weeks then of course it's not HE, it's taking a holiday in term time.

gaelicsheep · 25/10/2012 23:38

It most certainly is not. Going home is not a holiday thank you very much.

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gaelicsheep · 25/10/2012 23:39

More to the point we really have no choice, so I was hoping for some helpful insight as to how we can achieve this with the school's permission and without harming DC's education.

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Emandlu · 25/10/2012 23:40

It does read as though you just want to take your kids out of school for a few weeks in term time. This does look as though you are trying to find a loophole in the no holidays during term time rule.

gaelicsheep · 25/10/2012 23:41

Oh crap, sorry I bothered asking. How can going back to the family home for part of the year, when we are forced to stay away for most of it, be taking a "holiday"?

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gaelicsheep · 25/10/2012 23:43

OK, let's try this again. How can I arrange it so that we can manage to live for part of the year at home and part of the year somewhere else, and still keep DC's education up to scratch?

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gaelicsheep · 25/10/2012 23:45

The "somewhere else" being where he has to be at school.

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Emandlu · 25/10/2012 23:45

Because visiting somewhere that you do not normally live is generally called a holiday.

If this isn't the case please explain a bit more fully and perhaps someone can help. We can only react to what you have written. I am not trying to be obstructive, I just don't see how it could be viewed as anything other than a term time holiday from what you have said.

Emandlu · 25/10/2012 23:46

X post!

I think you will need to speak to the school involved as any kind of flexi schooling is at the discretion of the head.

Emandlu · 25/10/2012 23:47

At least this is the case in England, I don't know about Scotland.

gaelicsheep · 25/10/2012 23:49

OK, sorry to over-react it's just a very sore point as we don't want to be away at all. I don't want to go into too much detail for obvious reasons, but in a nutshell I have a new job that has forced me and the family to move or else I'd be staying away most weeks. That has meant putting DS in school near my work, but I'm arranging with my employers to work from home for part of the year. So we're trying to work out how we can work this with DS's schooling. The ideal would be going back home totally, but I don't think that's achievable right now and we also continue to have concerns about the local school. So the best solution seems to be to be able to take DS out of school and educate him at home for some of the year, a couple of weeks either side of holidays for example. Does that make things clearer? Would this really be just "taking a holiday"?

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BrittaPerry · 25/10/2012 23:50

How many weeks, is the key fact, I think. Are we talking three weeks or half the year?

gaelicsheep · 25/10/2012 23:52

Well I think we're talking 6 to 8 weeks a year, which plus holidays would enable us to live at home for a good 16-20 weeks a year which would help all our sanity. I get the impression that the more weeks the better here, or else we'll be accused of just taking holidays and get in trouble, and yet for DS's schooling I would have thought the fewer weeks the better?

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weegiemum · 25/10/2012 23:52

I'm not wntirely sure what you're asking.

But if (from you're name) GM education is ban option, get in touch with SGG, they're very helpful (my children are in p5, p6 and s1). They're very keen to take in kids with minimal/local gaelic and push them on.

Pm me if you want a chat/ coffee! I'm very friendly!!

BrittaPerry · 25/10/2012 23:52

Ok, yes, that sounds like you would need a flexi school arrangement, but I hear it is very hard to get a school to agree to it.

NonnoMum · 25/10/2012 23:53

You may lose your play at the school, if it is over a certain number of weeks. I'm not sure how many, and of course, if your school is undersubscribed, it might not be a problem...

crackcrackcrak · 25/10/2012 23:54

If its just a few weeks then ask the head if the school could give you some work to do with him at home. It will be their discretion I imagine but your most recent post makes much more sense than the op.
otoh if you are at hone for school holidays can't you just work from home in work place town and keep DC at school but judt have more time with them in the afternoons?

BrittaPerry · 25/10/2012 23:54

Could you HE all the time?

Emandlu · 25/10/2012 23:55

Well flexi schooling tends to be that they are in school 3days per week (for example) and home the rest of the time. Or that a child would go in for French and P.E.
I can't guess what the school would say, but it is my gut feeling that they would see it as you trying to take term time holidays. You can ask them, but you would have to be dealing with a very free thinking head for it to work.

My main advice would be to talk to the school.

BrittaPerry · 25/10/2012 23:56

Bear in mind that there is no 'right' to flexi school, like there is or a school place or to HE.

gaelicsheep · 25/10/2012 23:56

OK, school administration issues aside - I know that could be an uphill battle - what about the education side of things? I was hoping someone might have done something similar?

weegiemum - are you suggesting I could put DS in gaelic medium when he's up here? I'm not sure he has no gaelic just now and is learning another language at school so could confuse him totally! I'm trying to ask - not very successfully - how we can go home without it being seen as a term-time holiday, which I don't personally agree with. If we can't I'm starting to see no option but full home ed, but I can't see that working for us.

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gaelicsheep · 26/10/2012 00:00

CrackCrackCrak - the point is though that we don't live in workplace town, we are just staying there while we have to and we want to return home as often as we can.

Emandlu - I still fail to see how trying to spend some time actually living in our own home can be seen as a holiday. That's really upsetting actually - we've just been fighting this very issue with the council trying to tell us we've moved out when we haven't! (We won).

TBH I would have thought that a few whole weeks a year would be far less harmful to a child's education than having them in and out of school every week. I understood from what I've read that there is a legal right to flexi school (if what I'm asking could come under that category).

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NonnoMum · 26/10/2012 00:01

I think we're all a bit about what you call 'home' and where you live.

You want to go 'home'. Is that somewhere you and your family have a holiday home? Or is it to go and stay with family?

If so, what do you call the other place? Work? Not sure I'm quite with you.

Emandlu · 26/10/2012 00:02

You could ask the school if they can provide work for him that you will do with him at home?

gaelicsheep · 26/10/2012 00:06

"Home" is the house we own, where I had my children, where I had PND, where I struggled with and conquered breastfeeding, where my DS went to nursery and school, where all our friends are. Just because you stay in a rented house temporarily because you need to work in the place does not make it home. Home is where your things are, your memories are, and where your heart is. Why is this such a difficult concept for everyone (on here and in the council)?

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