A response to Sir Martyn Oliver’s comments regarding flexi-schooling (5th December 2024)

Flexi-schooling – the practice where parents choose to home educate their children for part of the week – has come under scrutiny by Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty's Chief Inspector for OFSTED. He reported at an online briefing last week that he was not aware of the prevalence of this practice before taking the helm at the inspectorate earlier this year, and said that he is “very concerned” about it.

Recent research (Griffin et al., 2025, in press) suggests that this practice is especially prevalent amongst children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) and accepts that there are significant gaps in understanding rationales, organisation and outcomes of the arrangements for these children. Previous literature (Lawrence, 2012; Lawrence, 2016; Lawrence, 2017; Lawrence, 2018) has explored flexi-schooling as an option for parents of autistic children specifically.

There remains considerable confusion around the circumstances of flexi-schooling. The Department for Education (DfE) guidance on the approach is issued through publication regarding elective home education, implying that flexi-schooling is typically sought where home educating children are introduced to an element of formal schooling to ‘ensure the provision in specific subjects is satisfactory’ (DfE 2019a). However, as a recent scoping review (Paxman, 2022) suggests, ‘this is but one scenario; the DfE does not describe situations where a child already enrolled in school is granted a flexi-schooling arrangement and where learning is predominantly school-based’ (p. 4).

Mary Warnock, that great advocate for inclusion in education, conceded in 2004 that true inclusion in mainstream school for many children with SEN has not been possible and may rather result in a painful form of exclusion. Indeed, evidence shows that mainstream schooling is ‘failing to meet the needs of a great number of children with SEN’ (Paxman, 2022 p. 5). In deciding to flexi-school, parents may be making a desperate response to their child’s needs (Lawrence, 2018), articulated as a way to reduce their child’s distress, to support individual learning needs and to ensure that their child’s childhood is not wasted (Lawrence, 2018).

There is, indeed, as Sir Oliver suggests, urgent and overdue need for scrutiny of flexi-schooling. There is also similar urgent and overdue need to address an education system in this country that leads parents to make this serious and difficult decision.