The best of both worlds? Experiences of flexischooling through the personal narratives of families who are undertaking it

Poor mental health and declining school attendance among children and young people (CYP) are areas of increasing focus and concern among educational professionals. At the same time flexischooling, characterised by part time home education (HE) and part time school, has gained enormous popularity across the UK since COVID lockdowns. Although research around the topic is currently limited, studies suggest flexischooling can support the mental health and wellbeing of CYP who struggle with the demands of full-time school attendance. The present research adopts a small scale, qualitative approach using narrative thematic analysis (NTA) to explore experiences of flexischooling, as represented through the personal narratives of families engaged in a flexischooling arrangement. All three participants’ children were attending a UK mainstream school before and during the flexischooling agreement, and each child had a diagnosed special educational need or disability (SEND). Although the aim of the research was not to attain generalisability, many overarching themes were prominent. All participants described how a reduction in school-based days resulted in improvement in the mental health and wellbeing of their children, better engagement with the curriculum, and in two cases better overall school attendance. Other themes revealed important insights into the significant and positive impact of adopting relational and collaborative approaches in schools, and challenge the inflexibility of the current system and traditional constructs around schooling. Importantly, this research supports the idea that for some parents who have a desire to maintain connection with school even when their child struggles to attend, flexischooling can be a successful long term intervention put in place instead of full time HE, which many parents feel they have no choice but to pursue.