Aside of the theoretical origins and underpinning from John Holt and Roland Meighan flexischooling has been a grassroots development. Flexischooling has struck a chord with families and learners who have seen it as a logical and natural answer to their own learning and life contexts and needs. There are no hard and fast rules and templates with flexischooling – it has to be a negotiated and regularly reviewed provision. Understanding and accommodating flexischooling challenges schools as much as families and learners. It opens reflection and dialogue and enables schools to reconsider how they meet need and what they consider as an education. It provides a space in which mainstream schooling can begin to understand those who perceive education differently.
In this sense, it takes personalisation and parental and learner involvement to new levels compared to full time mainstream schooling. Even then flexischooling today has barely scratched the surface of what it could be (see Chapter 10).
There is real strength in this grassroots development. It stands in stark contrast to the decades of top down policy imposition and constraints within mainstream schooling. The space for mutual understanding and innovative educational approaches are significant and potentially ground-breaking. In that respect, it offers an important transformational arena which can be a model for bottom up development.
Steady, but secure and growth of understanding and practice is key for flexischooling to be truly embedded and ultimately taken on board by the government and DfE. This is our approach – to build a grassroots consensus so solid, that it cannot be ignored. Our provision of information and support (this website and our social media support groups) our campaigning and local events (see next tabs) are all part of that process.
