Are more of you planning to move your DC from private to state for 6th form now?

no, the offer won't be lower.

I once read on here about a poster whose child got a contextual offer, but couldn’t attend some visit related to this because it clashed with a skiing holiday they were on. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

my ds went to private school and has never even seen a bloody ski slope/resort unless it’s in pictures.

the sharp elbowed get everything anyway. Most notably, all the places in the best state schools in the country. I wouldn’t even know where to start finding one of those.

my dd is at private sixth form. Our local state sixth form doesn’t even offer an A level in the subject she wants to study at degree level. (economics).

All that’s goign to happen is that privileged is dressed up differently so people can humbly pretend not to be privileged.

@1dayatatime - that would be a completely BONKERS thing to do! There's no way this would be a good idea and could seriously backfire. All the discussion of private versus state for A-level, contextual offers, Oxbridge quotas etc - the reality is - it's pretty impossible, not to mention silly, to try to 'game the system' in any way. The system as it stands is designed to be as fair as possible, but beyond a certain point it becomes a bit of a lottery as far as uni offers are concerned.

@WomensRightsRenegade - the main thing universities take into account are UCAS grades and, to an extent, GCSE results. Yes, it's going to be more impressive if your kid got 10 '9' grades from a very low achieving comp than if they got those grades from a highly regarded independent. But that's as it should be!

This sort of thing makes me feel ill. Contextual offers are there for the disadvantaged not for the sharp elbowed.

Sickening.

I did for mine years ago. I saw no advantage in. Being in private for 6th form

Don't do this. 6th form colleges have students secondary schools on record. It's not going to be hard for the university to figure out the lie

One of my dd’s friends has just done this after GCSEs because of the proposed VAT and also because universities look more favourably on applicants from state schools. My dd’s little gang of 4 is now 3. They’ve been close for all of school so it’s really quite sad. In reality it’s difficult to keep in contact and be as close with your “old” friends if you’re spending all day every day with new ones. But 6th form is relatively short and most 6th forms do have lots of new kids.

Also, the policy isn’t set in stone. There could be legal challenges to it, as taxing education is a seriously regressive step.

@WomensRightsRenegade

"Thank you - does help to know we’re not alone! But re universities I think they only take into account where GCSEs were taken? "

You are correct but you can side step (or lie) this by simply saying your children were educated abroad and that they only moved to the UK for sixth form.

Slightly different as DD1 left her private school for specialist boarding at 6th form. She had no problems making new friends - most schools do have an influx of newbies at 16+. Social media means it is much easier to keep up with school friends and she'd meet up regularly when she was home and knew what they were all up to via chats. online games of cards for humanity etc. In a way it was helpful in lock down as she already knew how to maintain friendships remotely.

Incidentally that list of school on the Bristol access page is fascinating - several well known Oxbridge factories on it who I am sure milk it for their "reserve options".

Some private school kids struggled at my DCs grammar. I think it was down to handholding/spoon feeding vs independent learning. Some were ok once they had got used to it. I’m sure it varies hugely from private school to private school and grammar to grammar.

But independent learning is vital for success at uni, and in life.

Honestly, it's good you are aware of your kids' 'gilded' experience so far, but they will thrive and more at state 6th form. And the teaching will definitely be just as good, if not better!

It's not saying the same thing. Kicked out is not the same as not being offered a place because they didn't get the minimum grades. There was no being kicked out because they didn't have a place in the first place, the same applies to private kids applying for a place.

@WomensRightsRenegade it is hard, but just to expand on how it can be quite advantageous, at my DC's school the social groups and cliques seem to get 'set' fairly early on. My eldest (who will remain in private until he leaves for uni next year) has lovely friends, but feels in retrospect that a bit of a shake up for sixth form would have been really good, as socially it all feels a bit 'samey' now. Conversely, his friends who did leave for sixth form and have stayed in touch with everyone - as well as making new friends! So they've had the best of both worlds.

@Laserwho - OP did say they 'kick out the kids... who don't meet the minimum bar for A-Levels' - maybe the words 'kick out' seem a little brutal, but essentially you are saying the same thing. This is why you see a fair number of schools where the A-level results seem to outperform the GCSEs quite significantly.

@Laserwho yes you’re right, I was just using the vernacular of the local families who refer to their dc as having been “kicked out”

Just need to correct this for you. State kids are not kicked out. If the don't receive the minimum grade they don't get offered a place because they won't be able the handle the content, this is the same for private pupils moving. My child will be going to college in the same academy trust as his school. Priority is always given to kids already in the trust schools. If they don't achieve the minimum grade they actively find another course to suit the pupil so still taking up a place in college. Outside pupils including private enrol 2 days after the trust pupils and get courses from whichever course is left.

@RampantIvy Not the same, we are down south in Hants. Comps go to y11 only, no grammars.

Yes I’ve also been surprised at how many London sixth forms qualify for contextual offers. Camden Girls, for example, gets brilliant A-level results and a large proportion into Oxbridge each year, but is still eligible for contextual.

This isn’t a reason for moving my own kids, by the way, and universities do ask where you did GCSEs. They are ‘wise to it’ in a way, but if you have two ‘identical’ candidates with identical predictions and one is in a private sixth form and one is in state, the state candidate would probably carry a slight advantage.

Same here. I wonder if we are thinking of the same area? This is in West Yorkshire.

@RidiculousPrice yes, that’s right. It’s just a couple of unis, but for some students it’s exactly mapped to what they’re after and the parents are delighted to save 2 years of school fees.

No, it’s not a matter of course but some universities, eg Bristol, have a short list of secondaries that receive a lower offer, regardless of where GCSEs sat. Several friends’ children have been the beneficiaries of this; I was disbelieving but checked it out for myself (on Bristol’s access pages). I’m not saying I agree with it, as these were all privileged children. Other universities are more wise to this, eg Durham, and couple the short list of targeted secondaries with measures to weed out the kids who don’t need the help (eg look at post code as well).

I’m guessing it’s probably also very specific to one or two unis, eg Exeter or Bristol which are rammed with private school pupils already, or ones gaming the system like this.

Depends which unis you want offers from I guess.

Why do you think the offers will be lower? Contextual offers are one thing, but state students aren't just offered lower grades as a matter of course.

@redskydarknight this is specific to our little patch of London where there are a few state secondaries that attract lower grade offers (separate from contextual offers that look at where GCSEs were sat) due to being specifically named on some universities’ opening access lists of target secondary schools. And yes it is unusual but every year there are more and more ex private school families making this move : the really troubled kids have been moved out after gcse so it’s a completely different cohort moving into sixth form. But it is a very niche situation and unlikely to be replicated in many other places in the uk. And I’ve based my comments on real-life examples of students I know who have moved to state sixth form and received a lower grade offer than their friends who remained at private and in all other ways had identical credentials (same family background, post code etc).

Universities are wise to private school students moving to state school for sixth form. It's unlikely that going to your local state sixth form (even if it hits all the contextual indicators - and it's quite unusual for ex-private school parents to move their DC to sixth forms with poor history of success to university etc) alone will trigger a lower university offer.

I know it's different when it's not a choice, but we plan to encourage ours to at least look at and apply to other options for 6th form - state and private. There are different options that open up to them for post-GCSEs and I honestly feel like a lot of students benefit from a change in environment and addition of some new social groups at that age. They're also old enough to maintain friendships from separate schools if they see value in them.

In terms of small things to help, you might look at your budget and figure out an amount will be freed up without private tuition and some options for its use. Could you set aside an amount for some extra curriculars he's interested in? A car for him? A residential study experience of some sort? Help with housing when he goes to university? Obviously you don't need to do anything like bribe him to leave or let him blow the money on whatever he wants, but there might be reasonable things that private tuition was squeezing out of your budget before that become an option with a switch to state school.