Barnack Flexi

In 2020 my nursery age children were, like most, suddenly at home with us for an entire summer. We’d done arts and crafts in the past, but I admit that I left a lot of it to grandparents and childcare and we filled our time with outings and activity. During that long sunny summer we found ourselves pond-dipping, walking barefoot through rivers, exploring science in home experiments, I had time to teach my children about what the clouds were telling us about the weather and the names of plants and birds. I grew up with a stay at home mum and took these things for granted, but I also grew up in those days of minimal kids TV, no internet and no devices. In those months I joined Facebook homeschooling groups and found so many of the people there shared my despair at the national curriculum and wanted something more rounded, but more free for their children. One thing I know about myself though is as much as I love my children, I am a better parent for not being with them 24/7 and homeschooling just wasn’t an option for us. One day when I was talking to a friend, I googled the rules on homeschooling and found a sentence on the .gov website that blew my mind; ‘ you may choose to make arrangements for a child to receive part of his or her total education at a school (‘flexi-schooling’)’. I spoke to two friends who had worked as teachers and neither had heard of it. I felt excited by the possibilities of education for the first time, and the ability to ‘build my own’. As we embark on reception with my 4yr old I wanted to keep track of the experience, what we do, what works, what doesn't and what we learn along the way.