Stats: Flexischooling in the UK
So, there are no official stats, and no real way of figuring them out as there isn't an official attendance code for flexi. Plus it is arranged and understood in different ways, and can be confused with reduced timetable which is where the school suggests a phased return type approach or cutting down on a few problem lessons - this is quite different to flexi schooling as we mean it which is a long term arrangement initiated by the parents.
The flexischooling Facebook group maintains a map of schools - across the whole of the UK - known to have had flexi arrangements. They list:
50 schools that actively support flexi
369 that have offered it on a case by case basis.
This includes independent as well as state funded schools, both primary and secondary (though there are very few secondaries, and it would usually be in relation to a specific need of an existing pupil).
I would say that this is unlikely to be anywhere near 100% accurate - for instance I know they have schools listed locally that still have flexi on their website but actually only support it in 1 of the 3 schools in the federation, but all 3 are listed; some only offer it in reception; some have existing flexi pupils but aren’t accepting any more, etc - and also there will be some arrangements for children not on the group or who haven’t asked for them to be included on the map. Schools can be reluctant to have arrangements advertised in case everyone wants to do it!
There are 24,442 schools in England (including nursery schools and hospital schools), so this would represent around 1.7% of all schools.
Teacher Tapp have also done a couple of surveys on this. In Sep 19, 21% of teachers said that at least one pupil was flexi schooled. In 23, 28% of teachers said at least one pupil was flexi. These numbers are way higher than indicated by the flexi map, so my guess would be that they are including pupils on reduced timetables. I can’t find any firm statistics on the use of reduced timetables - the DfE guidance says these should be last resort and temporary but I don’t know if or how they are monitored.
