Is flexi-schooling heard of in USA? It is using a mixture of school based and non-school learning. In essence it is using a local school as a service rather than adopting its regime wholesale.
Out-of-schooling or outschooling is called "education otherwise" (EO) in the UK following legislation referring to a parent's responsibility to ensure their child either attends school or gets a sufficient education otherwise than in school.
I'm glad they've made the distinction with home-schooling, which EO people in the UK usually use to refer to mimicking school at home, having a "classroom" and a parent acting as a teacher. Most non-school based learning is referred to as "home-schooling" or "home education" by outsiders it seems and very little of it is actually home-schooling; this leads to a quite wrong view of kids who're getting educated outside of school as being shut-ins locked away from other kids and feeds in to the "not attending school means they lack socialisation" fallacy.
We started flexi-schooling to some success but in the UK it's up to the individual headteacher (how's that for a centrally planned education system) to allow it or not and our's deferred to the governors who basically thought, and expressed, that the only way to learn anything is in a school. My wife and I are both graduates with science degrees working in our own creative business, she has a teaching qualification and we've both been leaders with kids organisations for many years; we work in a semi-teaching role and I've done IT education with individual adults. Apparently either of us could educate a class of 30 kids, we do on occassion (sometimes out of school), but educating our own child(ren) like that or a small group of EO kids is apparently impossible.
Anyway, we did flexi-schooling for a year (1 day in 10 out of school, we wanted 1 in 5) without authorisation with the eldest child [ie in opposition to the school's expressed desire] - tests showed he was excelling despite the schools anticipation of abject educational demise.
Then the government brought in fines for non-authorised absence from school. This has weighed heavy, if we had the funds we'd just continue - it's worth it - but we don't have funds and so we've been unable to continue with what we consider (and the evidence suggests) is the best paedagogical approach for this particular child. The legislation is intended to stop people from taking their children on holiday in school time and their is scope in the system to accommodate flexi-schooling - and legislative support in the Education Act (and to a lesser extent the ECHR).
Were our child physically disabled, or indeed mentally challenged rather than excelling (just bright, not 'gifted' incidentally) it seems the school would have given greater concessions. Catering for those with exceptional needs is an area in which flexi-schooling is often accepted and used to great effect.
Out-of-schooling or outschooling is called "education otherwise" (EO) in the UK following legislation referring to a parent's responsibility to ensure their child either attends school or gets a sufficient education otherwise than in school.
I'm glad they've made the distinction with home-schooling, which EO people in the UK usually use to refer to mimicking school at home, having a "classroom" and a parent acting as a teacher. Most non-school based learning is referred to as "home-schooling" or "home education" by outsiders it seems and very little of it is actually home-schooling; this leads to a quite wrong view of kids who're getting educated outside of school as being shut-ins locked away from other kids and feeds in to the "not attending school means they lack socialisation" fallacy.
We started flexi-schooling to some success but in the UK it's up to the individual headteacher (how's that for a centrally planned education system) to allow it or not and our's deferred to the governors who basically thought, and expressed, that the only way to learn anything is in a school. My wife and I are both graduates with science degrees working in our own creative business, she has a teaching qualification and we've both been leaders with kids organisations for many years; we work in a semi-teaching role and I've done IT education with individual adults. Apparently either of us could educate a class of 30 kids, we do on occassion (sometimes out of school), but educating our own child(ren) like that or a small group of EO kids is apparently impossible.
Anyway, we did flexi-schooling for a year (1 day in 10 out of school, we wanted 1 in 5) without authorisation with the eldest child [ie in opposition to the school's expressed desire] - tests showed he was excelling despite the schools anticipation of abject educational demise.
Then the government brought in fines for non-authorised absence from school. This has weighed heavy, if we had the funds we'd just continue - it's worth it - but we don't have funds and so we've been unable to continue with what we consider (and the evidence suggests) is the best paedagogical approach for this particular child. The legislation is intended to stop people from taking their children on holiday in school time and their is scope in the system to accommodate flexi-schooling - and legislative support in the Education Act (and to a lesser extent the ECHR).
Were our child physically disabled, or indeed mentally challenged rather than excelling (just bright, not 'gifted' incidentally) it seems the school would have given greater concessions. Catering for those with exceptional needs is an area in which flexi-schooling is often accepted and used to great effect.