As a Federation we cannot agree to Flexi schooling for the following reasons.

For pupils in Nursery

We would not agree to flexi schooling as parents/carers can already request a part time place if one is available.

For Pupils in Reception -Year 6

Whilst a pupil is on our school roll the accountability for their safeguarding, attendance and outcomes in both progress and attainment lie with the school.

We are legally responsible for quality assuring the teaching and learning that pupil’s access and we could not do this were they being taught elsewhere, without taking time away from St Mary’s which would impact on the other pupils, staff and day to day running of the school.

Allowing children to access school flexibly would mean that:

• the school has less flexibility over the overall timetable as it would need to remain static in order to fit in with the flexi schooling arrangements for individual pupils.
• there would need to be  a high degree of liaison between the home and the school including the class teacher.
• We would still be accountable for ensuring that the pupil's English and maths skills are being developed over and above other curriculum subjects, and that the curriculum taught at home is adequately preparing them for qualifications and statutory assessments.

In order to facilitate this:

• We would have to direct time from the teachers’ overall time budget for them to meet regularly with parents/ carers to share planning and review progress, and possibly provide additional resources to be used at home. Financially, this would impact on the schools’ overall budget and as Teachers time budgets are already stretched, this would have implications on how the teacher fulfils their wider responsibilities which would in turn impact on all pupils and on their workload.

Following this analysis and subsequent discussions with school governors our position is that we would be unable to agree to flexi schooling requests.