Alternative Provision
What is Alternative Provision?
Alternative provision has traditionally been provided for students who struggle in school, often because of their behaviour. The impact of their behaviour on their own and other’s achievement, progress and outcomes seen as negative by the school, especially with the pressure of performance measures, such as Progress 8. In these situations, schools are willing to use funds to ensure that students who may negatively impact the school’s performance are not educated on-site. This could mean the child is excluded, or just educated off-site. Of course, a further complication is that if a student is registered with a school the school must include the student’s academic results in their figures, which may impact their performance measures and possibly the grade given by Ofsted.
A less common provision, but increasing in popularity, is available when a parent’s philosophy on education conflicts with a schools. Some would say that in an attempt to meet requirements placed on them by Ofsted, schools have narrowed their curriculum and ‘taught to the test’. Some parents do not believe this is best for their children and the number of students removed from school to be educated at home is increasing. Flexi-schooling, where a student attends school part-time and is home educated for part-time is another option.
To complicate the matter, a school can ‘B’ code a student who is attending alternative provision and therefore class the student as present in school or education. In flexi-schooling this is not the case. The school takes an attendance ‘hit’ and therefore it is harder for a headteacher to agreed (and they do have to agree) to a flexi-schooling arrangement, as attendance is a headline figure for schools.
NR Education is developing provision for all circumstances; for students who struggle in school due to their behaviour, who are school refusers, whose parents believe in a different style of education, for those who need alternative provision and those who need flexi-schooling. We hope to develop programs which cater for the needs of the child, parents and the schools (and in turn the LEA, Virtual School and Care homes).
Please contact us below if you require specific services and we would love to discuss your needs. We will be updating our website with our developments as and when they happen, and encourage you to come back to see what we are doing.
Flexi-Schooling
“Flexi-schooling” is the term used for a system whereby children are partly educated at school and partly educated elsewhere, usually at home. The nature of home education is that it often does not follow strict timetables or the patterns of a normal school day. The families involved like the flexibility of having their children undertake educational activities in the evening and at weekends e.g. attending sports clubs as part of a physical education programme. Unlike full-time home education, any agreement between a pupil’s parents and a school for the child to be “flexi-schooled” is at the headteacher’s discretion.