Which of these 3 6th form options do you like the sound of

DD moved to another school for 6th form, she has settled well, there’s a good cohort of new girls and she’s enjoying it. I like that she doesn’t hVe too much free time. She still has to do sport and other school activites, I particularly didn’t want her in a college where she had too much thumb twiddling time

Medics academy - I don’t know. Sounds a bit style over substance to me.

2 or 3.

How does one find out if a 6th form has a medic academy please? I've not heard of this before and google doesn't tell me much. Sounds interesting, what services do they offer?

Dd (first year uni) and ds (year 12) both changed schools for sixth form. They had different options we moved areas for ds’ sixth form. Just a few random thoughts…

Neither went to college in the end as dd was starting in 2020 and I heard some colleges were doing half online. I’ve subsequently got the impression that making a firm group of friends is harder at a big college, especially if there’s no central space/common room. They tend to make friends in their lessons but there’s no non-lesson social time as they often go home in trees. But lots still really enjoy it and the flexi time allows for part time work and driving lessons more easily.

They’re both glad they left school as they’ve made loads of new friends and kept their old ones too. They also have more of an appreciation of their old schools, having seen that no school is perfect.

Dd travelled an hour. She enjoyed the journey as she made friends to travel with. It did make getting a job harder though as she had less time. Also the majority of her new friends lived near the school so she had to travel to social stuff (by train but by Mum’s taxi if trains were down/she’d missed the last one) which was a bit of a pain.

My thoughts:

• 1 sounds a bit restrictive socially.
• If she wants to do medicine and doesn't have great support at school, you may have to be quite proactive yourself - but you'll get great advice on here if you join the Medicine 20?? group.
• A long commute will be hard if she has all the extra volunteering and other hoops needed for a medicine application. But she's clearly super organised, so no reason to think it won't be doable.
• Does 1 have good opportunities to mentor younger pupils? That might be useful experience that the others can't offer.
• IB is fab for an all rounder, and goes down very well with a lot of medicine depts. The work load is huge and shouldn't be underestimated, but it's a great course. My DD (now 4th year medic) is very happy she did it. Has made the dissertations at uni much less stressful for her than for her classmates.
• The medicine journey is long and stressful, so going where you feel comfortable, happy and supported is top priority.

my only thoughts are about the time table.
so many go to college and only have one lesson per day for example
so much study time
would she be happy to stay in the library, would she be able to get home if she preferred easily?

Not option 1. I did that back in the day and it was a poor preparation for my science degree, specifically practical side of it.

Agree with pp, the one with the medics support sounds the best bet.

My dd had exactly the same choices.

She went 1,3,2

I would have chosen 1,2,3

I'm sure you've probably considered this but does either option 2 or 3 have a quicker option of using a train with a bike?

I would absolutely go for one of the options offering medics academy if she has her heart set on that. Medicine is getting harder to get into (post pandemic and deferments and retakes during that time etc).

Also I know so many students this year predicted AAA in a levels who wanted to do medicine who got 2 A*s and a B in chemistry. So many got lower chemistry results than expected and predicted and so have had to defer again.

So for me the school with best chemistry teaching and medics academy would be the number 1 choice.

As an aside I'm also really pleased to hear a school in a deprived area has the facilities to encourage those in poverty to strive to achieve and provide those opportunity for them.

So I'd go for 3,2,1 in that order.

I must say that going to college instead of 6th form was one of the best decisions I ever made. Academically I might have done a bit better at school, who knows, I wasn’t an aspiring medic, but socially it was amazing and it grew my independence and general life skills massively. We had a blast on the bus on the way there and back. My closest friends are from those days.

Also I wouldn't worry about a commute at sixth form level

I'm in favour of a change at sixth form, especially where the school/classes are so small. Two of my DC did it and they really blossomed (actually I also did it long ago!). They didn't go to college (no sixth form colleges round here, only FE colleges which I don't think are the best choice for A levels), but to another school with much better sixth form facilities and larger numbers overall, and better/more consistent results for the subjects they wanted to do. Class sizes were still small and I think most sixth forms keep class numbers reasonably low. Other DC stayed at school (different school to the first 2 DC) but it's still a fairly large sixth form, they have also blossomed with the increased independence but your DD school sounds like my older DCs one - academically it would have been ok, but two more years of school rather than an opportunity to grow.

Option 2 will be a good experience to have before uni, as a stepping stone - I had a similar commute to a big college back in the day and I just used to read on the bus/chat the friends, it was fine.

My DD had similar choices, but school was 40 min walk away, I used to drop her half way on my way to work, but they don’t always start in first period in 6th form. School is tiny, excellent science teachers and head of 6th form but its quite old fashioned, also its on the edge of town, nowhere to go in free periods/lunch and DD just felt that the overall cohort size was too small especially as they had all been together since y7, it was a bit stifling. Class sizes max about 7 (its a private school). Have heard from others that the small cosy nature of it does not prepare them well for the massive lifestyle change of going to uni.

Choice of colleges - local one (also 40 min walk) whose reputation has slipped a lot in the last few years, or much smaller one in neighbouring town with steady reputation also requiring a 40 min journey (but 25 mins walk, 15 mins train). Fallback for the latter journey is that I work in that town.

DD has opted for the latter and is very happy there, the classes are 8-15 or so, she likes the independence of catching the train and being in a bigger town, there is not much communication with parents yet (y12) but she is working hard, enjoying it and making new friends.

Option 2

That's fair enough 3, you know her a lot better than I do Very glad to hear that it's something you're already keeping an unobtrusive eye on, and though I was urging awareness of the extra stress of a commute, it's very possible she'd not just cope but thrive with the extra challenges. It must be frustrating that both of the more promising-looking options involve that much travel, though. Makes socialising with schoolfriends more cumbersome, too.

My experience is a school setting is a good one for A levels. Eldest ds went to college and it was not a great experience. They had too much down time, few rules and little communication with us as parents. They did not know him so did not know when to push, when to support and just let them get on with it. Ds now in year 11 will go into a school 6th form.

Definitely not 1

Sounds incredibly dull with very few social activities.
College isn’t just about academics

We are currently looking at 6 forms for my year 11. I am really pro the 6th form college experience - great middle ground between school & uni to teach independence, self management etc.