Schools - I'm begining to believe they treat our kids like a financial transaction

Of course it’s a sales pitch. I bet when you go to the apprenticeship talk they don’t tell kids to do A-levels instead. Or if you go to the college open evening they don’t suggest sixth form.

Ah ok, thanks. We did look at them for DD but she couldn’t find anything suitable . I think that’s the issue though, the points accrued - there’s a potential to cut down post 18 options so I think most people look at keeping things as wide as possible for as long as possible , given that a lot of 16 year olds don’t know what they want to do at that point.

We haven’t looked at anything other than A levels for DS as he would want as wide a choice as university as possible.

OP. Not insulting trying to understand why you are posting.

What angle are you coming from?
Have you had a bad experience with your child?
Are you tasked (but who?) with pushing apprenticeships in NAW?
Are you a careers advisor?
What?

As it happens, my DD1 started but did not complete an apprenticeship at 18.
We are considering one for DD2 though she'll probably just do a BTEC.
A friends DS is doing degree apprenticeship.

But if you want a discussion you need to be a lot clearer about where you are coming from and what you want to discuss.

What you will find though that those apprenticeships that offer good qualifications and a high wage at the end, usually go to the brightest students and generally once they have completed A levels.

The majority of apprenticeship that are offered after year 11 are generally either low skilled or of a manual type.

Most students by the time they are year 11 generally have a fairly good idea whether they want to stay on school, go to college or an apprenticeship.

Schools tend to focus their limited time and resources where we believe they are vulnerable students who could fall into NEAT
or students that have been identified as not having any idea what they would like to do next.

I work in law and we have tKen on some apprentices recently. In some areas they are treated almost the same but in a lot the overall academic rigour is lacking. They haven't studied as wifely and struggle to get some of the more abstract concepts you study in depth at law school.

It's a fantastic alternative route and especially for those who may not have considered university but it is absolutely not EXACTLY the same qualification at all. It is more likely to lead to high level paralegal type roles and sadly as pp said many law firms are snobby and won't look twice.

Not sure whether similar issues exist in other industries.

You sound a bit evangelical about apprenticeships, they are good, but only one of a number of options and need to be looked at in context

I'm VERY involved in my children's career choices and decision

You'd never guess... 🤣🤣🤣

For most academic students, A levels are thw best option because they are the gateway to the next level of study (ie university). The school isn't being disengenous in encouraging academic students to take A levels.

However sixth forms do need bums on seats to afford to operate. If courses aren't full (in our place this is now at least 8 students) then they don't run.

I started this forum discussion to ask about other experiences

Really? Then why don't you expand upon your view with sufficient detail for other people to understand where you are coming from and what you specifically would like to see, rather than repeating vague stock phrases over and over and capitalising random words to shout at us all?

Sorry my bad - apprenticeship wage is £3.90 an hour.

I’m genuinely feeling a bit ignorant now. Which qualifications do you get through apprenticeships? Thought it was a City and Guilds or BTEC- you can’t get A levels can you ?

It's an example if one of the many many many shitty apprenticeships available to 16 year olds. There are of course decent ones aimed at kids wanting to be plumbers, childcare assistants etc, but they don't ask for high grade GCSEs - and I assume this post is solely about academic kids.

The solicitors apprenticeship isn't available to 16 year olds, and while I agree there are some good worthwhile apprenticeship schemes for academic kids they're largely aimed at academic 18 year olds with high A level grades.

Also massive lol at the solicitor apprenticeship idea. If you think there’s a good career waiting at the end of that path then you clearly have no idea how snobby law firms are.

you can become a qualified solicitor these days via the apprenticeship route, just as one example

If a student is certain that is what they want to do - fine. But for the vast majority of academic yr11s it isn't in their best interests to cut down their options so early on. Similarly for engineers - there's some excellent apprenticeships around. But by taking the "traditional" A level and university route, they can more easily change their minds at 18 (and choose a different university course) or at 22 (and choose from the vast array of graduate schemes who are more than willing to take on those with engineering degrees.

I don’t think that there actually is any other option these days is there? The only way to get a decent job (that you haven’t created yourself) is to do a levels and then go to uni.