Moving for 6th form

If you think that is terrifying consider the poor parents of Amelia who will discover in the June of year 12 that to visit all the universities she is interested in studying medicine at they will need to time travel back to the Autumn of yr12. She will not however know which universities might give her an interview until she sits the UCAT exam in August so wants to visit ten different universities. Due to train strikes, wanting to see two universities thirty miles apart in one day and that Amelia won't pass her driving test until October, they will end up on a 250 mile road trip over the weekend. She will end up deciding to go to the one which they decide to visit on the toss of a coin because it clashes with one of the other universities she is interested in.

This is utterly brilliant and also quite terrifying!

@Unexpecteddrivinginstructor "The system is as chaotic as a teenage mind is at that stage yet somehow the head of sixth forms and the admin teams smile on through it all."

This sums it up perfectly!

I with your husband OP, mostly it plays out ok and tying yourself in knots over it won't achieve anything. If they're applying somewhere they're unlikely to get in then they need to have a realistic alternative lined up, but for many DC they just get their pick. Admissions teams can be very helpful and at this age they will talk to you directly, as well as to the student.

It is and it isn't complex. Essentially all she can do is apply to as many as she is interested in, do as well as she can in her GSCEs (always useful anyway) and then see what happens on results day and in the week or so afterwards.

One of mine just applied to and stayed on at the same school, just went to the taster at that school. One made 3 applications - the original school (didn't go to taster day), attended taster at one school which was meh and the other school didn't have induction days but did offer a place which was accepted. By that stage they have finished GCSEs so unless away/ working the induction days were just a bit of time in an otherwise very long summer holiday.

It does seem like a huge decision at the time, and moving isn't always easy (tears some days in first week) but actually really good experience for going to university and making new friends, being in a different institution, etc.

This is over a decade ago now but I did 3 sixth form induction-type things I remember! And that didn't even include the school that I was at, that I could have stayed at. Had my pick of the schools after results day.

Yes, mine did, but they weren't 2 days - just half a day. The most popular and over-subscribed of the schools had a first-come-first-served booking system for the induction session because there is no way they would have been able to accommodate all offer-holders.

If you think about it, school sixth forms have no grounds for not giving conditional offers to all applicants, because they can't objectively predict results. They can use predicted grades to help them estimate the likelihood of an individual application meeting the criteria, and they can use meetings to try and guage whether individual applicants are fully committed to the courses they've applied for, but until results day there is no certainty.

Essentially don't book a holiday without phone signal, stock up on wine, hair dye and wrinkle cream. Perfect the nodding, listening and the phrase 'It is really up to you, but I am sure wherever you are it will be what you make of the experience' and see it as a dry run for uni applications, clearing and not knowing where in the country your precious child will be a month after A level results day.

In my experience as a parent the schools have certain thresholds for each subject, e.g. if you want to study Chemistry you need a 7 in Chemistry etc. Getting a 9 will not put you at the front of the Chemistry queue. They then also apply any entrance criteria so often this is a threshold amount- e.g. score over 6 in at least 8 GCSEs then all those scoring over 6 are ranked by distance. One school I know ranks pupils by grade average, highest ranked get offers first. Distance is only used as a tie break.

The schools all do things differently so you need to be familiar with the entry requirements for that school. As others have said though you can apply to multiple sixth forms and your place will only be confirmed on or after results day. My dc had to ring up to give results then wait to have offers confirmed. Even after results day you usually have a day or two to accept. This means there might be a cascade of offers after results day.

For example Toby might apply to four schools/ sixth forms A, B, C and D. School A Toby doesn't make the grade requirements so is rejected. Sixth form college B Toby makes the grade and he is offered a place on results day. School C Toby meets the threshold but on results day there are other people living closer so doesn't get an offer on results day. School D ranks the applicants and offers to the top 150 scorers. Toby is ranked 152 (although probably is not actually told the rank). On results day Amelia is offered school A, C and D. Amelia prefers school A so releases the places at school C and D. Toby is next nearest to school C so he is given a place at school C, he has to decide between B and C. He decides to stick with sixth form college B so rejects the place at school C. The place at school C is then offered to Sam. Sam is already holding offers at school A and D but actually really wanted to go to school C so he then rejects the places at A and D and accepts school C. Finally Toby is offered the place at school D because Amelia and Sam have rejected their places and he is next highest ranked so he now decides to reject his place at sixth form college B and accepts school D.

Imagine that multiplied over many students and throw in some teenage angst in which Toby has a crisis of whether to accept or reject School C, rejects it but then is unsure whether that was the right choice because his girlfriend is going to school D and school D is nearer to sixth form college B but then school C offers economics whereas sixth form B only offers Business Studies. Toby is finally happy when offered school D because they offer economics, it is close to home and his girlfriend is going there (even though they will then split up just before Christmas). It can be a few days or even a week before it is really clear which school/ college they are going to and even once term starts there will probably be some who change their minds and go back to their original school.

The system is as chaotic as a teenage mind is at that stage yet somehow the head of sixth forms and the admin teams smile on through it all. It probably helps that lots of students will opt to stay on at their original school or maybe choose to go to the sixth form college so there is some flexibility in the system.

The conditional offers should be for the minimum academic criteria in the policy.

I'm a school governor, but I also have two DCs who have been through the application process in my area.

Most schools in my area would give a conditional offer to all that apply, but then use their oversubscription criteria on results/registration day. For example, they might give out appointment times in order of distance (if that was the main criterion) then close the door on later appointments when all places are filled. Also, if your child has applied for popular subjects that fill before their appointment time, they might have to select a different course to what they wanted. So read the small print of the admissions policy and all letters carefully, and make sure you have back-up plans.

That is frustrating for him, but yes it's more like school than university applications in a lot of ways. The further away you are, and the more applications there are from linked schools/"catchment" above you in the list, the lower your chances. However there's also quite a lot of elasticity in the system and more places than students overall. Students are allowed to hold multiple conditional offers until results day, so it follows to me that all the colleges that offer to them can't necessarily all guarantee them that place. They'd need 2-3 times their capacity to do that. However students should all be guaranteed a place locally either at their school or (if their school stops at 16) at a linked college.

Same here. The selective state school here also has a sixth form double the size of their lower years so plenty of high achieving students from other schools move there for sixth form. It's a bit of a brain drain for other schools tbh.

We also had a nerve wracking day on gcse results day to see if ds got into a new school sixth form. He got the grades but they were over subscribed for one of his subjects. We heard by 5 pm that day that he had a place but it took the shine off the day totally.

Be warned, if you get a “conditonal offer” for y12, it is NOT a guarantee of a place in any way. The school will have a priority criteria list (on their website) but they are not obligate to convert this to a place if the grades are achieved (unlike uni where they are.) I had a relatives child who had set his heart on a 6th form transfer, he got the offer, went to induction day, they were SUPER enthusiastic, got the grades, and then told on trying to enrol they had offered many more places than they had, and he had to stay at his current school. It was extremely frustrating for him.

You sometimes have to hunt around to find sixth form admissions policies on school websites. Sometimes its a section at the end of the year 7 policy, sometimes separate. But it sounds like your school sixth form isn't oversubscribed, so you've never had a reason to look for it.

Interesting - I've never seen a Year 12 PAN locally (and I've had 2 children look at different sixth forms). Didn't know it was a thing!

It's not odd - it's what they're meant to do. The Year 12 published admission number (PAN) is only for external admissions. Their own year 11 students who meet the academic criteria are entitled to transfer automatically. So all they can really do is publish a minimum for externals.

I was also about to say that it's odd that a state sixth form would specify an exact quota of external candidates - more likely to be the number they approximately take in every year.

My DC's sixth form takes pretty much everyone who applies. Although they do not guarantee your choice of subjects (but they don't for internal candidates either).