An educational pinball machine

Are flexible schools offering young people a different education, or simply another place to go?

There is a fear that imposing accountability measures on flexible schools risks turning them into mainstream schools with smaller classes. It's a reasonable concern. Flexible schools were established precisely because conventional schooling wasn't working for many young people. Reproducing the same structures, expectations and measures of success seems unlikely to produce different results.

But there is another side to the argument. Flexibility should not mean an absence of accountability. Young people who have struggled in mainstream education are no less entitled to a worthwhile education, meaningful learning and recognised achievement than their peers.

The question is not whether flexible schools should be accountable, but what they should be accountable for.

An educational pinball machine

Many young people entering flexible schools have already experienced a succession of unsuccessful educational placements. They have moved between mainstream schools, alternative programs, Flexible Learning Options, and sometimes several Special Assistance Schools.

They become caught in something resembling an educational pinball machine, bouncing from one provision to another without necessarily getting any closer to an education that works for them.

Sometimes the move is prompted by behaviour or attendance. Sometimes it follows a breakdown in relationships, exclusion or the exhaustion of a school's capacity to respond. to issues that the young people present. Whatever the reason, each new placement offers the promise of a fresh start.

But what makes us think the next placement will work?

Too often, the question appears to be where a young person can be accommodated rather than what kind of education they need and which school is equipped to provide it.

Who decides that a particular school is the right place for a young person? What do we know about why previous placements failed? What is different about the educational provision being offered? And who takes responsibility when another placement doesn't work?

These questions become particularly important when young people move between several alternative settings. Each school may be able to explain its own decisions, but nobody necessarily takes responsibility for the young person's overall educational journey.

The result can be a series of disconnected attempts to re-engage a young person without a clear understanding of what might make the difference.

Not all flexible schools are the same

One of the strengths of flexible education is its diversity. Schools can organise learning differently, develop distinctive approaches to curriculum and pedagogy, and create environments that respond to young people's circumstances.

But diversity also raises questions about educational fit.

A young person who responds well to practical, project-based learning may need something quite different from a student seeking a structured pathway in a style that suits them. Another may need intensive support to rebuild relationships and confidence as they can participate in sustained learning.

There is no reason to assume that every flexible school can or should meet every student's needs.

Yet we know surprisingly little about which approaches work best for which young people. Schools may describe themselves as inclusive, flexible, relational or trauma-informed, but these descriptions tell us relatively little about the educational experiences they actually provide.

Smaller classes, informal relationships, no uniforms and fewer rules may make a school more welcoming. But they do not, in themselves, constitute an educational program.

Schools need to be able to explain what they offer in terms of curriculum, pedagogy, intellectual challenge, qualifications and pathways.

And we need to know whether those offerings are appropriate for the young people being enrolled.

Accountability without conformity

This is where accountability becomes important.

The concern that accountability will make flexible schools more like mainstream schools assumes that accountability necessarily means standardisation. But it need not.

We don't have to insist that every school follows the same timetable, teaches the same way or organises learning around conventional classrooms.

We can, however, expect schools to demonstrate that young people are learning, making progress, achieving worthwhile qualifications and moving towards meaningful futures.

We can also expect schools to understand who they are serving, why students are referred to them and what happens when a placement doesn't work.

That requires looking beyond the students who complete their programs or achieve qualifications. It means paying attention to those who attend briefly, disengage, move elsewhere or simply disappear.

A school may be able to point to remarkable individual success stories. Those stories matter, but they cannot substitute for understanding what happens to the whole cohort.

Nor should engagement and wellbeing, important as they are, become substitutes for educational achievement. Relationships may provide the foundation for learning, but the ultimate responsibility of a school is to provide an education.

Who takes responsibility?

There is a larger question that extends beyond individual flexible schools.

When a young person leaves mainstream schooling, moves through several alternative programs and eventually disengages altogether, who is accountable?

Each institution may have acted with good intentions. Each may have provided support. Yet the young person may still have experienced a fragmented and increasingly diminished education.

Perhaps accountability needs to follow the student rather than stop at the school gate.

That would require better information about educational histories, more considered decisions about placement, stronger transitions between schools and greater attention to what happens after students leave.

It would also require education systems to examine their own responsibilities. Flexible schools should not be held solely accountable for difficulties created by exclusionary practices, inadequate resources or the failure of mainstream education to accommodate diversity.

The point is not to make every flexible school look the same. It is to ensure that every young person has access to an education of substance and value.

The real danger is not that accountability will turn flexible schools into mainstream schools with smaller classes. It is that, without meaningful accountability, we may continue moving young people from one alternative to another without ever asking whether we have found the right school for the right student.