Member

We must also not overlook children in flexi-schooling arrangements, addressed by Amendments 202C and 227A, spoken to just now by the noble Lord, Lord Frost. These are children who remain on a school roll under formal agreements to spend part of the week learning at home or elsewhere. Flexi-schooling is not evasion; it is often the very means by which anxious, neurodivergent or physically unwell children can stay partially connected to school. Sometimes it is the only way that children exceptionally gifted in sport or the arts can balance intensive training with education. Yet, as drafted, Clause 31 risks pulling these children into the not in school register simply because they are not present five days a week, despite being under a formal school sanction plan. That is not only illogical, it actively endangers a valuable form of flexibility by burdening it with inappropriate regulation.