State school 6th forms oversubscribed

Because they’d need to hire more teachers! A-level classes can’t be taught in groups of 30-35 like lower school classes are.

Again, as with your posts above, you don’t seem to have any idea about teaching. Do you think that teachers can simply absorb big rises in their prep and marking workload? Why do you think that’s the case when in no other job would that be possible?

How on earth do you think A-level teaching works? More students in the class means a lot more prep and marking for the teacher, and much less individual time per student to cover the material / practicals. It isn’t like teaching year 7 - A-level material requires more input from the teacher per student per class, and much more submitted work and marking from the student. The work takes the teacher much more time to prepare and mark. You can’t just add more students with no appreciable effect on this.

Around 450 students in each year - Y7-11, we were told enough spaces for around a quarter of the year group.

London isn't easy to expand when you are on a small site. They are planning to expand to around 250 a year in the 6th form.

They are oversubscribed because lots of current students want to stay but won't get the grades, and lots of students from other local comprehensives and private schools are keen to move there.

Oh sorry, I didn't realise we weren't allowed to discuss things if they aren't the case in every area of the UK.

Why do the government’s own funding projections suggest increasing numbers and funding challenges for this age group then? (See page 19 of this document for one):

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9194/CBP-9194.pdf#page35

Why are they oversubscribed if many current students are leaving anyway? Are they taking a much smaller number of pupils in the sixth form? Seems odd that they don't just expand so they have capacity for students that are already there.

This really isn’t the norm away from London.Quite the reverse. This thread is an inaccurate attempt to whip up a storm over school fees. There has always been movement from the private sector post GCSEs.

There is only enough space for at best a third of the year group.

Lots do change anyway and are happy to do so especially those not doing A levels.

This thread was pointing out that there is anxiety about oversubscription of state 6th forms and increased competition. That is definitely the case listening to parents.

Especially as if you just miss the ask in your own school you are then competing for an external place elsewhere which is harder to get.

It sounds like loads of students change in which case the students probably don't care that much about going to a different sixth form. Where I live there is a fair amount of movement in sixth form. One of my DC switched and knew several pupils at the new school plus made knew friends. It's good preparation for going to university.

Maybe it will be something people think about when choosing a secondary school in future? My kids went to/ go to the local catchment comp. Not the greatest results overall ( decent ofsteds though) but very inclusive, great mental health support etc . Made very clear that priority in sixth form was for existing pupils and that minimum grades were guidance as long as a pupil could cope with the course. Also a range of BTEC / A level options.
Not a perfect school by any means but I’m so glad mine didn’t go for the super selective grammar schools as this school tries to support all children. Hasn’t stopped either getting offers from great unis - in a weird way maybe even helped!

But some of this will come out in the wash.

I'd never heard of a state sixth form that doesn't have enough places for all its current Year 11s that want them. Presumably this must have come about because of a surfeit of places elsewhere, and we will see extra places created if there suddenly isn't a surfeit because so many private school students are taking them up.

Schools with the highest GCSE entry grades getting the highest A Level results is a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. If the students with the slightly-below-highest GCSEs are now going to another sixth form, all that means is that the results at that sixth form will rise and it will become equally desirable for a slightly different cohort of students.

I live in an area where there is a lot of new housing being built. Typically what happens is that there is a lot of new housing, an influx of students, and people find it a "hard" year to get into typical schools, sixth forms etc, then more provision is created and it all readjusts.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow
I'm not sure I like the ethos of raising the bar for current pupils. It doesn't show much in the way of loyalty and recognition of pupils' affection for and contribution to the school.
Of course have minimum standards, but to raise them at this stage will cause the kids so much unnecessary and additional stress.

Lol maybe SOME elite London schools. Not necessarily ones like Eastlea comp in Canning Town for example

Yes they are prioritised, but the grades asked for are very high, and the level of competition means that if you slip a grade and don't hit the ask then there is unlikely to be any leeway as the places can be filled many times over by higher scoring external candidates.

And yes, unsurprising the schools get great A level grades.

But, if your child is the one who just misses getting enough for the place, they are now the external candidate everywhere else, and therefore unlikely to get a school that is at the same level (as they will also be prioritising their internal candidates first).

I'm in the fortunate position of not competing in the bun fight - DD is very SEN and has her sights set elsewhere - but there are a lot of parents who are more stressed this year than normal as schools have a) upped the ask for A level entrance and b) more applications.

There are also private school parents stressed as they know they will need 8s and 9s across the board to have a decent shot at the top state 6th forms.

I went to a super-selective grammar (not in London) and they have lower requirements than many London comps for 6th form.

Aren’t the pupils who are already there prioritised over external candidates? That's the way it works in the great majority of areas. It seems very unusual that there aren't enough spaces for pupils that are already there if they have achieved the minimum criteria. My children went to a grammar school and the sixth form asked for quite high grades but the grades they asked external candidates for were higher than the internal candidates.

Regardless, It's hardly surprising if schools achieve very good A level grades if all students achieved grade nines at GCSE. It doesn't mean the standard of teaching is any better than anywhere else.

Correct.

The government has to guarantee a place somewhere for all 16-18 year olds. There are masses of FE colleges offering BTECs, A levels etc. But there is huge competition for the top 6th forms.

DD's comp doesn't have anywhere near enough spaces for everyone that wants to stay on, and so they have a high grade ask for those spaces, and a huge number of applicants for anything left over on Results Day.

If you know there is a queue of kids with all grade 9s wanting a place, that's a lot of pressure now on children to achieve the grades to be able to stay on at school with the friends and teachers they have known for 5 years.

If they don't get the grades, you are then competing as an external candidate elsewhere and trying to find a new school that offers the subjects you want and the right level.

Some schools closed applications early this year. Lots of children have applied to 5 or 6 schools and had interviews, reports, references etc.

So the problem is more competition for the very selective six forms rather than a lack of six form places overall?

There are loads of amazing ones - and some not so amazing ones. But for some you need to live on the doorstep in very expensive postcodes, or get aptitude places, or spend the relevant number of years praying etc.

There are lots of reasons people also choose private - SEN, poor choice of local state, tradition, wanting to have smaller classes and less disruption, worry their children are easily led and likely to coast, wanting very selective and no grammars etc.

But, when you have potentially been spending £££ for years, and now there's an extra 20%, a lot of parents with children with really high grade predictions are thinking that actually if they target a really high ask state 6th form there won't be the disruptive elements, and they can save the fee money to pay university upfront or house deposit etc. If child is already on track for stellar GCSEs, is the value added enough to keep them in private? The sports facilities, theatre and exciting extra curriculars that were so appealing when child was 11 may not be so important if they have two left feet and would rather spend their time coding than on stage.

Having recently done the calculations, a 3 year degree in London with the full maintenance is heading for £70k borrowing... and may well increase. That's a huge chunk of debt to be starting life with.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow
This is really interesting...I was always of the opinion that London state schools were excellent and that one would be mad to waste one's money on private, but maybe it depends on area. Friends' children have gone to Cardinal Vaughan, The London Oratory and Sacred Heart, Orleans Park and to be honest, the teaching sounds better than some private schools I know.
Glad we don't have to compete! Sounds stressful...

London is very competitive.

There are lots of alternative options obviously, but people also want their children to go to the best school for whatever the next steps are.

London also has a high proportion of children in private education.

When you have state 6th forms asking for those kind of entry grades, they are likely to have sizeable cohorts chasing offers from very competitive university courses.

I have a child in state in Y11 and am talking to lots of other parents in the same cohort who are applying to the schools like King's Maths School, BRIT (up to 2,000 applying for 50 places on some of their courses) and the most selective 6th forms. These parents are state and private - and people are very aware that competition is going to be more intense this year than last.

It's not a case of thinking the private students are cleverer or going to have higher grades. Any student coming out with the scores needed for these schools is clever. It's about the increased numbers fighting for the same spot.

Bit like super-selective 11 plus where it's not passing the exam that counts, it's passing with a score high enough to be in the top 120 students who took the exam.

So what are the numbers? I mean it's quite likely VAT will have an impact, but my issue is the way the Op stated that open evenings were jam packed with absolute hordes of private school pupils desperate to join state schools. Yet she can't possibly know this for a fact, and it's annoying when people just want to whip up an angle without any specific data.
Apparently around 6-7% of pupils are educated privately, but this is anything up to 17% at 6th form, presumably due to a number of young people going into training rather than staying on at school. So in September, if this data changes significantly, you can then discuss the impacts this will have.

There's plenty of capacity almost everywhere. Oversubscription will be very localised. It's currently around 3,000 across England, Scotland and Wales (or was in November), a drop in the ocean compared to the roughly 717,000 18-year-olds in the UK and the 20,000 children from Ukraine absorbed by the state school system.

Although obviously with regional variations - some parts of London and the SE drop off much faster than other areas.

So if you're looking at the number of Year 11s: between 2023/24 and 2033/34 there are a number of areas where pupil numbers will be higher because the bulge comes later and takes longer to feed through.

So in Kent it's forecast to be 8.9% higher, with lower increases in other regions such as Essex, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire and the West Mids among others.

Meanwhile Inner West London will be 23.4% lower, outer London, pretty much all of the South West, Cumbria, North Yorkshire and other areas all dropping off a lot faster.

I'm using the London Data Store interactive tool for the data - it really shows the pace of change in some areas and backs up what we feel like we've experienced locally - 2023/24 Year 7 was a beast of a year for admissions and catchments were very tight, and for this year's Year 7 the catchment for pretty much every school, including the most oversubscribed, was about 500m bigger.

No one is saying it didn't happen before. The issue is the numbers

Very few will be going state to private esp with the added VAT

I'm amazed at the entry requirements for some of state sixth forms referenced here. Where I live the maximum that was asked for was 42 points over 8 GCSEs ie 2 x 6 and 6 x 5
For some courses some (but not all) schools specified a 7 in a particular subject, but still within that 42 point general criteria