State school 6th forms oversubscribed

Noble is a very, very long standing member of mumsnet Any regular on the education threads will know she is a very experienced maths teacher with a lot of experience in university applications.

And as for canteens. All of the schools I know have canteens contracted out by places like Sodexo or the larger 6th forms have branches of Costa Coffee/Starbucks on site.

You also still haven't clarified from yesterday why this will necessitate a huge increase in income tax.

I think catering is contracted out at many schools.

Okay, if you don’t know anything about schools funding and accounting, I’m afraid I can’t help you further. Just carry on making things up in your head instead 😆

You don't seem to be accepting that extra pupils will pay for their own textbooks and food so it was incorrect to list these as additional costs to the school.

Okay, you really are not understanding basic things at all.

How do you think the school pays for, staffs, cleans and maintains the canteen? Do you genuinely think students paying for their individual lunches funds this?

We are talking about the cost of extra A level students, not whether they cost money at all. Increasing numbers isn't going to add much extra to the heating, lighting, cleaning bills etc unless there are more buildings. They aren't going to increase the number of books in the library either and they aren't providing textbooks to six formers nowadays in many schools. Students pay for those resources. There will be an increase in costs but I don't agree it will be substantial.

On the other and I know kids who changed to a private school for sixth form. They wanted to board and got scholarships that made it affordable.

Perhaps you shouldn't have suggested that schools need to pay for extra food and textbooks.

Who funds the canteen? This really is obtuse. You really can’t be a teacher!

A-level students buy their own textbooks and pay for food in the canteen so I'm not sure why you brought those up as examples.

Ah. Who do you think funds the libraries/school textbooks/school teaching resources/subscriptions to A-level boards’ teaching and exam databases/institutional online resource subscriptions/exam board fees/invigilation costs?

Or the school kitchens/buildings and grounds maintenance/non-academic staff/computer systems/cleaning/caretakers/energy to heat and light the buildings/furnishings/water for the loos/loo paper? Do you think sixth form students don’t use the buildings/need heating/lighting/use the school facilities/need loo paper?

In educational accounting usually at least 1/3 of the total income must be allocated across general non-teaching core business costs. That’s an accounting rule: you don’t get to ignore it. But I’m stopping contributing here, because this thread clearly does not have people who are knowledgeable in how schools (or in fact any institutions) are financially funded and run and it’s a waste of my time explaining these things to people who don’t have a clue how schools or universities work.

Bizarre this suggestion that a sixth form would need to pay more for sports facilities, textbooks or food because of additional students.

Also they can't decide if class sizes will double which will bring in a substantial amount of extra money to the sixth form, or whether it will be a pitiful amount which won't raise enough money for anything at all.

Also, putting on an extra class at A-level wouldn't require hiring a whole extra teacher.

And yes, funding per student always includes a substantial proportion for non-teaching costs: how do you think those get funded otherwise?

In the sixth form many of the things you mentioned e.g. books, catering aren't funded by anyone other than the students or their parents nowadays.

Yes, we get that info. Plus it isn’t exactly rocket science to work out that A-level music probably has fewer candidates than maths 😆

If you only see average class sizes it won't tell you much about class sizes in specific subjects There will be wide variation. e.g. there could be two doing music a levels but 30 for maths. So not sure how useful it would be.

Er….yes. I have worked in the sector for 25 years across DfE schools policy, university admissions, widening participation programmes and am a trustee of several education charities, so I know how schools funding works. And yes, funding per student always includes a substantial proportion for non-teaching costs: how do you think those get funded otherwise? That’s one of the reasons why schools’ per capita 16-19 funding is a lower amount than FE/6th form colleges - because part of those costs are cross-subsidised by the 11-16 funding in schools.

If you want to look at the exact funding formulas (they are reasonably complex), you can start with the document I linked to above.

Interesting that you're an expert on school funding and also on University admissions. Not sure many state schools spend a substantial amount on food or books or much in the way of sports facilities to sixth form students nowadays.

Missing the point 😆 Whatever you do with the references, I still see the average class sizes for A-levels, so I can tell you, A-levels are not routinely taught in the class sizes that lower school classes are.

Do you actually see the page that UCAS generates for the school references? Each school reference form has a box for year 12 and year 13 enrolled numbers for that school. In addition we also get those numbers, plus average class sizes, HE and Oxbridge offers and achieved places for the last 5 years, from the DfE and UCAS databases. Why do you think we don’t get this info?

There were 30 in some maths and science classes at my DC grammar school. I wasn't very happy about it but presumably the school got more money for more bums on seats.

We have a maximum class size of 20 students (very rarely might go one over in something like maths).

😆 The increase in “bums on seats” doesn’t remotely make enough money to employ many, if any, additional teachers. Each student brings in c. £4.3k per capita per year per school (at school 16–19 per capita funding amounts). Each student does 3/4 A-levels, so the amount per subject is at the most a third of that £4K.
And that doesn’t even take into account the amount that goes towards non-teaching costs per student (substantial - resources, admin, pastoral support, books, library, sports facilities, catering etc.)

Is that enough to employ many extra teachers, each with a total return costing (this includes employers’ costs, eg pensions and NI) of £40-60k+? No. Instead you need to decrease the teacher’s timetabling and increase class sizes in the lower school to compensate.

We don’t provide that data either. And have absolutely no problem getting people into university. I can’t imagine the departments care about that.

Your university admissions process seems to be very different to others. How do you know they are going to tell the truth regarding quality of teaching? They could either say it's bad if they feel it's going to help them or they could say it's good because they know the school see the applications before they send it off. Also, where exactly do you get the data on every class size?

I didn't say large A-level class sizes are the norm in every school but they certainly are in the grammar schools where I live for some subjects. They get very good grades too. The range of abilities is not as broad and probably easier to teach a larger class size. Teachers won't have to focus on pupils who are struggling because none will be struggling. My point is if they are asking for high GCSE grades for sixth form entry they can teach larger class sizes.