Flexi-school insights and evidence base
Overview
Nurture Outdoor Kindergarten was founded in 2015 in Worcestershire, and has been working with children and families to enable respectful parenting, childcare and education ever since.
The Challenge
Some parents of children under 8 years old in Worcestershire reported feeling disempowered by the lack of education options beyond mainstream school for their children. Although parents are aware of the option to home educate their children, many did not feel they had the time, resources (including financial resource) and skill to home-school. A small number of parents were aware of flexi-schooling, but were unsure of how to go about doing this with a school.
We began working with Nurture Outdoor Kindergarten in 2019 in response to their request to gain further understanding and confidence in offering parents flexi-school options for children up to age years old.
What We Did
In 2019 we supported practitioners at Nurture Outdoor Kindergarten, gathering insights into the motivations behind flexi-schooling from an Early Years point of view. Through empathy interviews we connected with parents to understand their views on school, and more specifically flexi-schooling. We delved deep into current research on innovative education models and flexi-schooling, and connected with the Centre for Personalised Education who have unique insight into flexi-schooling within the UK.
We then developed a clear plan to empower parents with options on schooling, by enabling a flexi-school programme at Nurture Outdoor Kindergarten.
A key part of that plan was to support local school leaders to work with Nurture Outdoor Kindergarten in a collaborative way. We tested a process that streamlined the sharing of information between school, parents and the Early Years setting. We are now working with three partner schools in Worcestershire.
Our current focus is on sustaining and growing flexi-school options for families across the UK. If you are interested in this work, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
We Created
A comprehensive report on flexi-schooling including:
- key information for school leaders
- mini case studies from schools with successful flexi-school programmes, including views from Ofsted on the programmes.
- evidence base for flexi-schooling