How to choose 6th form??

[HmmmIwonder]

Dd just starting Year 11,(age, just turned 15) so will soon be choosing her 6th form. Choice is: either stay at current high school or leave next year, and go to local 6th form college.
Current school has all the advantages of familiarity, with friends, teachers etc. but is ofsted 'satisfactory' for 6th form.
Local 6th form college would mean leaving all the familiar faces behind (in only one year from now, when she's just turned 16!) and coping with that change as well as the academic challenges. Local 6th form college is ofsted 'outstanding' and has excellent academic and pastoral record.
Want to help her do what's best for her but feel totally and overwhelmed (why isn't there an emoticon for that?!)
How to choose? How to cope with the choice?
Any help/ideas/ support/ advice, anyone, please?!!

[cory]

Go and talk to them, go and talk to them!

First of all, your dd needs to sit down and think about what her plans are.

Which A-levels would she like to do? What kind of future has she got in mind? What will that require- e.g. going to university, what kind of university, what are their minimum requirements (easy for her to check online), or if vocational what kind of training?

Then read all the available prospectuses and see what they have to offer. Keep an eye out for all the extras: for instance, do they have links with particular businesses or universities, do they offer enrichment activities that might be useful for her CV.

For instance my own dd (who is quite academic but with a strong interest in drama) decided not to go for the college with the very best academic reputation but for one still has a good overall reputation but is known for its strong drama department and links with that world.

Then she needs to make the most of the open evenings, to make sure she gets to talk to the tutors in her particular area. Encourage her to ask specific questions about what they study, how they support their student's studies and what combinations are allowed (dd rejected one college when she found she would not be able to combine her chosen A-level with a vocational course she also wanted to do). This is also a useful time for asking "what if I do less well than predicted in my GCSE's- how would that bear on my A-level choices?"

She needs to bear in mind that friendship groups will probably change anyway as people develop stronger interests and go down different career paths. But that you can always hold onto your real friends, even if you don't see them every day. So I would advise her to ignore that aspect. Two years from now she will be choosing the university which offers the degree she wants, or the workplace she has trained for, not the one where she will find old friends.

[secretscwirrels]

Everything Cory says.
DS just going into 2nd year at sixth form college. His friends all went to various different places, even those who went to the same college do different subjects so he sees little of them. It's like a half way point to university, much less like school.

[hellsbells99]

You can also apply to both. If both offer places then you can make you mind up nearer the time. Also this covers the bases if there is a subject clash in the timetable.
Otherwise I agree with everything posted above.

[cory]

dd did this, hellsbells

in fact, she applied to 3 different colleges

this gave her the time to talk more to them about options and combinations and make sure the practicalities of her preferred college would actually work

[ISingSoprano]

I also agree with everything Cory says.

Make sure your dd looks carefully at the specific syllabuses on offer as these can vary tremendously. When ds was choosing between two sixth form colleges, both offered Late History but one syllabus was repeating a lot of the GCSE course he had done whereas the other was covering new ground.

Remember too that going to a new sixth form can be an opportunity to re-invent yourself.

[HmmmIwonder]

Thanks everyone. Trouble with sitting down with her to discuss what she wants to do is that what she wants to do changes week to week. If she had a clear idea it would be easier to research a route towards that goal.
All she knows is that she wants to go to uni, but the subject/s she wants to study there varies .
Applying to both 6th forms sounds sensible.
It's current school open day soon, followed by local college open day. Tbh, i'm worried we'll go to the first one and think oh yes that's the best choice, then go to the next one and think the same again...and go round in circles.
True re friends and changes in friendships. I'm really wary of her making any choices based on friendships, they're so volatile. On the other hand, part of me thinks it's not right to take her away from all her friends and familiar faces just at that crucial time of her life. Isn't 6th form enough to cope with without spending the first term settling in and making new friends?

[cory]

If she is undecided, the applying to both makes sense. It is very likely that her plans will become more focused during the course of the year. Dd changed her mind about the possible colleges during the course of the year as she talked to other students and found out more about them. Option no 2 was very firmly removed from the list of possibles.

As for the familiar faces, I'd say most teens have to make new friends when they start sixth form. Think about the even bigger change of going to university! Not that far away. And then she won't even have you.

My own dd is moving up to sixth form now and it seems a great time for trying out new things: making new friends, trying out new interests, getting used to more independence.

[ISingSoprano]

Sixth form is the perfect time to break away a little and make new friends and try new things. She will still be at home and have your support and she will still have her old friends. Making the step to higher education afterwards will seem (slightly) less daunting.

[IloveJudgeJudy]

DD changed schools in 6th form. In fact, she has just started today. We went to a couple of 6th form evenings, in addition to the school she was already at. She walked into the one she's now attending and said almost immediately that this was the school she wanted to attend. It was the feel and the curriculum. They offered A levels from a different board than at her previous school.

I would just go to the open evenings, or even ask if you can attend during the day if your DD isn't certain.

Our DD will be able to keep in contact, as mumslife said, with her friends from her previous school. It just means she won't be with them all day, every day.

I think your DD's choice has to be governed by that unquantifiable "feel" of a school and the curriculum/A levels that they offer. We found that the "talk" at the 6th form evening was much better and definitely written by the pupils rather than seeming to be written by the teachers (even though it probably wasn't) and helped make up DD's mind.

Just take DD and go and have a look!

[TheWave]

Completely agree about looking at the exact curriculum/board that each school does. And ask as you go around the classrooms at the sixth form evening. For example Classical Civilisation can be very literature based or very history/culture based and the same for MFL.

Also ask about school trips on offer if that is of interest as the info wasn't obviously in the prospectuses or on school websites.

Look at how welcoming they are to new prospective incoming students and parents at open evening.