FLO/TL and SAS…

There are five thousand secondary school-aged students in alternative school sites in South Australia. I estimate there are around 4,000 students enrolled in Tailored Learning previously FLO (based on past figures up to 2023 the Department has not released figures for 2024). Another eleven hundred in six Special Assistance Schools (SAS) in the Independent and Catholic Sector.  These schools and sites cater for young people who have disengaged from mainstream education and are not participating in vocational education and training or employment. They have not had a significant effect on retention or achievement in senior secondary education.

Flexible Learning Options/ Tailored Learning

The Flexible Learning Options Program began in 2007 as a program under the Innovative Community Action Network (ICAN—FLO) as a response to low attendance, retention, and achievement in Education Department schools. Young people who were disengaging or disengaged from mainstream schools could be given a flexible learning option enrolment where they would be given a case worker, from a Non-Government Organisations, who would work with them to overcome the barriers to education and broker programs designed to reengage them.

The Graham Report

In 2020, Linda Graham was commissioned by the then Minister, John Gardner, to investigate suspension, exclusion, and expulsion in South Australian State Schools.  The FLO program was not in the original terms of reference but formed a large part of her report because it was seen as a form of passive exclusion.  Dr Graham found that the FLO program was largely unaccountable and that because of the opaqueness surrounding the program, ‘It was impossible to tell if students enrolled in FLO were doing FLO” p324. She recommended that the FLO program be decommissioned, which the Department of Education accepted in the interim response.

Two years after accepting that the FLO program be decommissioned, the Department for Education (DfE) opted for a “program redesign”. The redesign was taken as an opportunity to improve the efficiency and public face of the program: “a new name, a stronger structure and greater and more specific guidance and processes regarding enrolment for schools” (DfE, 2023).  The program continues as Tailored Learning and has been rolled out to all schools with an injection of 47 million dollars.

Special Assistance Schools

Special Assistance Schools are accredited non-state schools that cater specifically for children and young people who have disengaged from mainstream education and are not participating in vocational education and training or employment. Special Assistance Schools do not charge tuition fees and generally attract a higher level of funding per student than other schools. (Independent Schools Board Queensland, 2020) The growth of Special Assistance Schools is an Australia wide story with the number of schools and number of enrolments making SAS the fastest growing school sector in Australia.

 In 2014 there was one SAS school in South Australia with an enrolment around hundred. In 2025 there were 6 SAS operating across 9 campuses with new schools and campuses in the pipeline. These schools are growing not just in number but also in enrolments.  They are catering in the main for young people who have emotional and social issues that meant they have had difficult transitions in school and in finding a place after school.  A great many of the students in the programs have experienced a range of school placements as well as having been placed previously in FLO programs or even moved between different SAS.

 An ethic of care

 The FLO/TL programs, managed by the host school, and the independent SAS are very different in character and educational approaches. At their best - the students in flexible and alternative sites self-report strong relationships that increase wellbeing and efficacy.   Coupled with engaging youth-oriented activities, remedial programs, high interest project-based learning, engagement with the community, vocational curriculum, and learning tailored to their interest and passion these “alternatives” fulfil a need.  They provide a find a space that admits more of the young person’s personality and their life where they feel safe and valued and where they can find the support to deal with the challenges that the school space wouldn’t acknowledge. The caveat here is that attendance remains an issue.  The schools and sites work for a number of students who remain attached and engaged but for others the patterns of attendance are so varied that the programs do not add up to a coherent education.

The” grammar “in alternative education sites is very different from that of mainstream secondary school. Teachers with varying levels of experience work alongside youth workers, and adults with specialist and generalist   skills across traditional subject boundaries.  In addition to this the students accessing the schooling experience is intertwined with wellbeing, life coaching, the day-to-day issues of having an income, getting support and the complexities of daily life.

The grammar of the SACE does not fit easily into alternative sites which means that formal outcomes from enrolments are very low. I will examine this in my next post.