More and more schools are adopting flex periods. As K-12 educators explore ways to ensure inclusion and equity, address learning loss, and personalize student’s learning, a flex period can provide a much-needed solution.
Flex periods are designated blocks of times during the school day, scheduled in addition to regular classes. Typically, they’re used to give students opportunities to get individual or group academic support. However, schools can use flex periods in any number of ways to address student needs that, while important, can be hard to fit into the traditional school day. These include offering extracurricular activities, student clubs, enrichment programs, or study halls.
Read on to learn more about flex periods, how schools use them to support students, and why they’re growing in popularity.
What is a Flex Period?
Flex periods are scheduled alongside regular classes to provide opportunities for students to seek help where needed, pursue interests, or catch up on missed work. Usually lasting 20 to 60 minutes, flex periods might be scheduled every day, on a block schedule, or once a week. Ideally, flex periods are offered schoolwide and at times that ensure all students have access to any teacher or activity. However, staggered flex periods are also an option if resources are particularly limited. These are often aligned with lunch breaks and structured by grade.
What Are the Benefits of Flex Periods?
Flex periods can help students gain more instructional time during the school day and create opportunities for personalized learning. They also give teachers more time with students that need additional support, as well as additional challenge. For schools that want to offer enrichment and extension activities during the school day, flex periods can also be used for this purpose. Depending on how your school wants to use them, flex periods can help you address some of the most pressing issues schools today face, including:
- Combatting learning loss by carving out time for individualized support
- Improving attendance by giving students more to look forward to in their school day
- Preparing students for college and careers by instilling agency and responsibility
- Creating a more equitable and inclusive school culture
- Allocating time for social and emotional development and wellness
What Are Some of the Ways Schools Use Flex Periods?
As the name implies, the beauty of flex periods lies in their flexibility. Flex periods can be implemented in a number of ways to support students’ learning and holistic development outside of their regular classes.
Personalized Academic Support
Teachers can use flex periods to offer remedial instruction or tutoring, ensuring that students receive the help they need to stay on track or catch up. This type of targeted approach is more efficient and effective than a one-size-fits-all strategy.
Accelerated Learning
In addition to remediation, flex periods can be used to offer accelerated learning opportunities to students who are at or above expectations. For instance, a flex period may be offered for physics students to work at a faster pace or explore advanced topics like quantum physics.
Collaborative Learning & Peer Support
Flex periods are a great way to facilitate group learning experiences and peer tutoring sessions. Giving students the opportunity to learn from each other can help address learning gaps, while also fostering new relationships and creating a feeling of shared responsibility for each others’ academic success.
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)
Beyond traditional academics, flex periods can be used to support students’ holistic development and improve wellness. Schools can use flex periods to provide programs that teach students how to build resilience, develop social-emotional skills, and learn essential life skills to support their mental health and wellbeing.
Enrichment Programs
Flex periods can also give students the opportunity to pursue special interests as part of their learning. Some examples include cooking, photography, robotics, and creative writing classes. Using flex periods in this way can increase student engagement and motivation.
Extracurricular Activities
Flex periods also open up opportunities for students to be involved in extracurricular activities, like sports, theater, or D&D clubs. These opportunities are often limited to after school hours, which limits their accessibility to all students. By offering them during the school day, you ensure all students have a chance to participate.
How Can You Start a Flex Period in Your School?
It’s easy to see how flex periods can drive improvements across your school. Implementing them, however, may feel like a daunting task. Rest assured, it’s not as complicated as you might think. These five steps will guide you through the process.
Step 1: Identify Purpose and Goals
Before you jump into the logistics, clarify why you want to implement flex periods and what you want to achieve. Assign a small, multi-functional committee to guide this process. Articulating your vision statement and objectives will get everyone on the same page and provide a “north star” to guide you through the remaining steps.
As a critical part of this process, identify all of the stakeholder groups — faculty, staff, students, families — whose buy-in is needed. Consider their motivations and how you can build on these, as well as their objections and how you might overcome them.
Sample graphic organizer to guide your planning:
Sample vision statement:
Starting a flex period at (school name) will enable us to (insert primary purpose), while also (insert secondary purposes, if applicable)
Step 2: Create the Schedule
Finding the time for a flex period doesn’t need to be a roadblock. Start small by identifying just 20 minutes of time and creating a draft schedule. Some ways schools find the time include:
- Adapting your homeroom or advisory schedule (daily or on certain days only)
- Allocating time at the beginning or end of your lunch period
- Shortening each class period by 2-5 minutes
- Extending your daily bell schedule
Step 3: Get Buy-in
Getting buy-in for flex periods is probably the most important step to a successful implementation. Begin sharing your vision and rationale for flex periods early in the process so the idea isn’t entirely new. Identify early supporters and share the draft schedule with them for feedback. Continue iterating and sharing with additional stakeholders in a phased and patient way, engaging your supporters to help you bring others along.
Step 4: Prepare Logistics
In this step, you’ll identify the systems and tools you need for implementation. This includes defining the people involved and the roles they play. You’ll also decide how students are assigned to flex periods, how they’ll know where to go, and how staff knows where each student should be. Don’t let this step stall your progress. There’s easy-to-use software available, like Securly Flex, to guide this planning and make the process much easier.
Step 5: Develop Norms
Once the logistics are figured out, the last step is to establish and communicate norms to ensure the system operates smoothly. Consider how flex periods should and shouldn’t be used, what the expectations are of teachers and students, and how these will be communicated and enforced. Define the norms clearly, and make them visible and accessible. Anticipate the need to over-communicate and reinforce these norms, especially in the early stages, but also at the beginning of each new school year.
Get Started with Flex Periods the Easy Way
It’s easy to see how flex periods can help schools provide a dynamic and personalized approach to education. By implementing flex periods, schools can provide valuable opportunities for academic support, enrichment, and personal growth to their students — all within the regular school day.
If figuring out how to use them in your school feels overwhelming, it doesn’t need to be. Securly Flex is a scheduling tool designed specifically to help schools like yours enjoy the many benefits of flex periods.
With Securly Flex, every aspect of flex period implementation is made simpler. Teachers can easily customize flex period offerings, and students gain voice and choice in their education. To learn more, visit www.securly.com/flex.
