“The fastest way to supercharge your child’s potential is to engage them emotionally, mentally and physically in the learning process.”
What really makes the difference is when the parent and teacher are on the same page. This isn’t ‘time out’ from school. It is ‘time in’ for learning that lights them up. Using the concept to intentionally switch on your students’ lights so they can become what I call Lights On learners is what matters.
Who might benefit from flexi-schooling?
We all know that engaging young people can be difficult: turning the lights back on involves making time in the school week to discover and explore what really does light a student up. If we don’t, then getting them engaged is going to feel like really hard work, with a lot of heavy lifting often to no effect. It is easy to feel like you are letting your students down, or even failing, when you can’t engage them in a way your heart knows you can.
In my experience a good way forward is to encourage parents and teachers to ask these simple questions:
- Is your child/student happy and engaged when they are doing something they love? Yes or no?
- Are they sparkier on the weekends, during the holidays or in after-school clubs? Yes or no?
- Are they actively telling you they are bored, hate school, or find your lessons/home education dull (ouch!)? Yes or no?
If your answer is yes to all of these, you’re probably looking at a normal healthy reaction to being bored and disconnected from learning. No need to pathologise their behaviour. We can turn this around fast in relatively conventional ways. If the answers are no, and they are disengaged across the board, and you are very concerned about their mental health, you will want to investigate further.
An alternative way forward
One way forward at this point could be to consider flexi-schooling, which will give you time to explore with them that thing that lights them up. Because once you find that spark again, everything can change really fast. As it did for my daughter and with Ollie. Instead of a school lifetime of SEND support we’re talking less than 12 hours of Lights On Learning.