Raising our children with His Blessings...

Best of both worlds: The new trend of flexi-schooling By Helen McNulty Thursday, 20 May 2010 , Published by the Independent Niamh, aged six and a half, is in our garden at home, looking inside our chickens' nesting box for eggs. Afterwards, she goes in to read her picture encyclopaedia, occasionally pausing to tell me something new or to ask a question. It's a Thursday in term time, but she's not at school. Nor does she attend on Tuesday or Friday afternoons, although she's a registered school pupil. Niamh isn't truanting – she's flexi-schooling. Education shared between home and school is a legal option for any schoolchild, if the head teacher agrees. The exact number of flexi-pupils in this country is unknown, but there are thought to be about 400, mainly in primary schools, and numbers are slowly growing. Some parents, like me, want a compromise between full-time home-educating and full-time school. At first, I considered home education...