State school 6th forms oversubscribed

If a subject is oversubscribed at a state sixth fom with people who have achieved the grades then they try to persuade people to change one of their subjects to one where there is a space.

It's not just the vat which is prompting pupil to change to state sixth forms - the Oxbridge effect. The private schools local to me have only a couple of students with offers but again the state schools in the next borough have been very successful and can play the widening access with the Russell group unis. Have heard of quite a few students heading along the Elizabeth line for sixth form open days

They can’t change their entry requirements with that short notice.
Every year we have more students with exceptional grades from outside apply than we have room for. We can’t simply get rid of internal students with lower grades.

I live in a sixth form college area and have just checked a couple of admission policies, they both prioritise partner state schools and if you’re a partner school subject to you meeting the grade requirements you’re guaranteed a place. Distance then comes into it further down, so state school applicants are prioritised ahead of private school ones.

And not a "thing" in Scotland at all where we don't have "sixth form" and children just stay on at the same school they've been in since age 12, whatever their grades.

Well about half of DS's year group are. £50k saved over 6th form pays for uni or a house deposit as an alternative. That's not to say half of them will make the switch, but there is absolutely a lot more scrutiny over what you're actually getting for your money, whereas previously a lot of people just carried on, blindly into private 6th form without giving it much thought.

Aside from the private school VAT issue I'm surprised that anyone would expect a pupil to be guaranteed a 6th form place just because they've been a pupil at a school since year 7. It was like that in my day it's true - you basically just turned up on the first day of term at my school and said what you wanted to do! There were always a few pupils doing O level resits too. But that was in the days when most people left school at 16 and only a fairly small minority went on to do A levels, never mind a degree so I guess most ordinary state schools could more or less guarantee they'd never be oversubscribed for 6th form.
But now that's very different, with so many more pupils staying on for 6th form. The school my DC went to has had a formal application process for 6th form for at least a decade now and is always over subscribed. The other sought after schools in the area are the same and they are all effectively semi selective for 6th form, with minimum entry requirements both for 6th form in general and specific subjects. Most kids do stay in their original school but there's always some movement. There is usually a significant intake of pupils from other schools to our 6th form and some existing pupils who don't get offered places or who aren't allowed to do the A levels they want and there is no opportunity to resit any GCSEs.
It seems tough - one of my DS's friends was heartbroken a few years ago when he didn't get in because he'd not got the required maths grade even though he had done extremely well in the subjects he wanted to do for A level - but I can see it from the school's perspective too.
I think the real problem is that the shift to requiring more and more young people to stay in education longer hasn't been matched by investment in schools. Additional pupils from private schools will make next to no difference where I live because most of the private schools closed years ago - as a PP said, the biggest threat to private education is good state provision and we are fortunate to have that here. But the good 6th forms are heavily oversubscribed anyway.
I'm not sure by what proportion our school has increased 6th form numbers in recent years but they've built an extra building to accommodate them and it definitely seemed a lot bigger when my youngest left last year compared to when my eldest was there a decade ago. The fundamental problem is that we have too many children in an underfunded system. Extras entering from the private sector won't help, and in some areas may be significant, but they aren't the cause of the problem, that's far bigger and has existed for a lot longer. Requiring all 16-18 year olds to be in education and training and encouraging more to go to University sounds like a good idea on paper but only if you properly fund it, which successive governments have failed to do.

Switching to state from private at sixth form has long been a thing. After all, 6th forms are a select group of students at every school - the ones who want to study further and had the necessary grades. It's an entirely different cohort to GCSE and so quite a few private school parents feel private 6th form does not offer the same advantages.

Easily solved with a school policy change: priority to existing students who meet the grade requirement. This is pretty standard around here. Most of them also leave x% of spaces open to transfer students who make the grades.

There are lots of transfers from private at 6th form. Always have been. It's not been a problem. You just need good admissions policies.

We went to 4 6th form open days - different schools offer different subjects so we looked at all of them in case our local didnt provide the combination of subjects that DS wanted to do. They were not going to offer Geography so we were going to go elsewhere but in the end they had enough people to put it on.

most people I know also went to look round all 4 of the local schools - obviously only a 1/4 went to each school! so crammed open evening doesnt mean a thing!

Are there really many parents who can afford it, now deciding that private sixth form is not worth £25K a year of value, who were quite happy that £20,800 was value for money?

Our nearest Sixth Form takes about 1000 pupils per year. Private school pupils are a drop in the ocean (they tend to chose it for the wider range of subjects).

It's not just a case of whether private school parents can afford it, for many, the extra 20% is making them not want to afford it. There comes a point where you decide it's not good value anymore. DS is in Y11 and we'd always assumed he'd carry on at private for 6th form, but the VAT encouraged us to go and look at our local state options, which we'd never done before. A couple of them were really very good, so it makes you question whether £25k a year in fees is actually getting you £25k a year of 'value'. Many Y11 parents are deciding it doesn't.

I'm quite surprised that the school sixth form admissions rules don't prioritise their existing students,

Most round here do - so if a particular subject is very heavily oversubscribed the competition for the place (based on GCSEs or distance depending on the school) is within existing students first. The minimum PAN for external students is usually pretty small (12-20) and will only increase if there are insufficient numbers of internal applicants.

Probably worth lobbying the governors to change it if this isn't the case where you are.

Where I live a LOT of private school students move for 6th form anyway. I don't think much will change.

A lot of private school families do not have several thousand pounds a year spare, on top of increases in the cost of living, mortgage rates and the increase in school fees following high inflation. Any contingency may well have been eaten up by these things.

Even where families could afford the VAT, the fees may now be at a level where they feel it's no longer worth it.

I find it really interesting that all these privately school educated kids are from families that can't afford 20% extra. Surely lots must be able to and if you don't have an extra 20% contingency in the bank then it wasn't a wise financial decision as fees could have always gone up? This has been in the political cards for ages ?. Meanwhile people at state schools are apply long as per the admission criteria as they always have. I doubt at sixth form this will have e massive impact as kids scatter anyway.

@LordGiveMeStrength

Of course there will be more private school pupils looking to switch at 6th form, as many parents at can no longer afford the fees. Many families are hanging on until natural transition points (11 and 16) to make the switch. 2010 was a high birth rate year, and those pupils will be in Y9/Y10 at the moment. The issue is likely to get worse over the next couple of years.

As schools are very much measured on their exam results, schools are likely to want to take those pupils with the highest GCSE grades, as they are more likely to perform well at A-Level. The great 6th forms may well become harder to get into.

What else did you think was going to happen?

Biggest threat to private education is great state education. Demand better for everyone! In our county lots of kids go from private to state 6th form because we have a fantastic group of post 16 colleges. It does make teacher recruitment in schools a little trickier, because all the schools are 11-16, but it’s great for 6th form. It’s not competitive, you need the minimum grades to be successful on the course, plenty of support because of the scale of the college. Excellent results, including good progress. Great preparation for university. Selective school 6th forms are the issue here, not people deciding not to keep paying fees.

Round here teens look at 3-4 sixth forms so they won’t all go to the one you are looking at.

I can guarantee that if the sixth form college I work for suddenly has an influx of private school students with good GCSEs or even ok ones they will do everything they can to accommodate! And I doubt it would be at the expense of places more broadly either.

Our local 6th form open days have been jam packed with so many year 11s moving from private schools

How do you know where all the kids attending the Open Days went to school? Can't have been that crowded if you had chance to go round and ask them!

The state 6th forms here have always had kids move from private. That's nothing new. Some local 6th forms are struggling for numbers so would benefit from this supposed "influx".

Lots of places where I work and at neighbouring colleges . Are you referring to Surrey / Kent areas ?? when I went to a state Sixth Form I met lots of new people who’d moved from private schools and will always be the case .

This must be a very localised issue. The proportion of kids in private education in Year 11 across the country is tiny and not all of them will move to state provision for 6th form.

Not an expert in admissions criteria, but I'm fairly sure that state schools aren't allowed to select based on the students with the best GCSE results.

What they can do, is set minimum entry criteria to continue onto Post 16 courses. But that has been the case since ... well always.

If a current Year 11 student gets the required grades for Level 3 study, they will be able to go onto into sixth form. A private school student getting better grades won't influence that.

Sixth form open days are often packed. Private school students often move (or at least consider) moving to state at sixth form.