Part School, Part Home.
Could Flexi-Schooling Work for Your Child?

For some children with SEND, the choice seems to be between a full school week they can’t manage and leaving school altogether. There is a middle option that many parents have never been told about. It’s called flexi-schooling, and new UK research gives the clearest picture yet of when it helps and when it doesn’t.

What flexi-schooling actually is

The Department for Education’s statutory attendance guidance, updated in July 2026, now defines flexi-schooling directly. It describes it as “an arrangement where a child is primarily electively home educated but attends school for part of their education by agreement with the school”.

In plain terms, your child stays on the school roll and attends for part of the week. For the rest of the week, you’re their home educator. (The DfE wording says “primarily” home educated, but in the research below most children were in school three or four days a week.)

What the official guidance makes clear:

• The school doesn’t have to agree. The DfE says schools “are not obliged to offer such arrangements”. There’s no formal right of appeal if the school says no, so how you approach it matters.
• The request comes from you. The research author notes that schools are “not supposed to recommend it for individual pupils”, and many local authorities say only parents or carers should request it.
• It isn’t a reduced timetable. A part-time timetable is a temporary arrangement, agreed between the school and a parent in exceptional circumstances, that reduces how much of the week a child is educated at all, and it’s recorded with attendance code C2. The DfE says flexi-schooling “should not be confused with part-time timetables”, because the child is still getting a full-time education between home and school. Schools must not use code C2 for it.
• Home days are recorded as authorised absence. Where the school agrees, it records the home sessions with code C (leave of absence), which counts as authorised absence. DfE’s home education guidance adds that schools sometimes worry flexi-schooling will count against them at Ofsted, but “this is not the case”. That’s worth knowing if your school is hesitant.
• The home days are your responsibility, and your cost. You still have the legal duty to make sure your child gets a suitable full-time education, with the school days counted towards it. As with any home education, you take on the cost of the home element, including tutors. The school days cost you nothing. The council can also ask about the home education your child receives.

What the new research found

On 5 October, Special Needs Jungle published a guest article by Jon Paxman, Senior Research Associate at the Relationships Foundation, summarising three recent studies on flexi-schooling for children with special educational needs (Researching flexi-schooling: How beneficial is it for children with SEND?). One surveyed parents and carers of 31 flexi-schooled children. Another interviewed leaders at six schools in England that support several flexi-schooled pupils.

Most of the children in the parent study were autistic, had ADHD or had specific learning difficulties. Twenty of the 31 had previously been registered full-time, and just over half of those had attendance of 90% or less before the change.

What parents and school leaders reported:

• Wellbeing improved for many children. Parents of children who had been full-time reported improvements in wellbeing, anxiety, dysregulated behaviour, and their child’s ability to attend on the days they were expected. Most put that down, at least partly, to flexi-schooling. One parent in Scotland said: “Being in school less hours is a massive help for my son’s behaviour as he is less overwhelmed.”
• It can be a route back to full-time. Primary school leaders said flexi-schooling sometimes led to full-time attendance. Only one of the five primary schools reported a clear case where it didn’t meet a child’s needs.
• Too few school days can backfire. Children attending half the week or less were more likely to see school friendships suffer. Where children attended only one or two days, some were struggling to leave the house at all.
• The same things made it work. Good communication between home and school, personalised learning, and parents committed to making the home days count.

Is it right for your child?

Flexi-schooling isn’t the answer for every child who finds school hard. The research suggests it is worth a serious conversation when:

If your child has an EHCP, get advice before agreeing anything. DfE guidance says that where parents arrange their own suitable home education, the council’s duty to arrange the special educational provision in the plan can fall away. The guidance doesn’t spell out how that applies to the home days of a flexi-schooling arrangement, so be clear about it before you sign up. Flexi-schooling is also different from EOTAS, where the council arranges and pays for education outside school. IASK (Information, Advice and Support Kent, 03000 41 3000) and IPSEA both give free, independent advice.

If school is no longer working at all, flexi-schooling may not be the right route. EOTAS, elective home education and extra funding to keep a child in school are legally different options, and the difference matters. Read our guide to the three routes →

How to make the home days count

The research is clear that home days aren’t simply catch-up days. Families in the studies used them for:

• Recovery. Time to regulate after the demands of school days.
• Therapy and appointments, without missing lessons.
• Outings and practical learning, such as museums, nature, cooking and building.
• Self-directed learning built around the child’s interests.
• A lighter overall load. Most children in the studies had a reduced workload, or dropped some non-core subjects.

Frequently asked questions