Sixth form offers and results day

Like all academies, LAE have a funding agreement with the DfE (see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/academy-and-free-school-funding-agreements). The agreements for 11-18 schools say they have to follow the national admissions code. However, the agreements for 16-19 provision say their policies should be "fair, objective and transparent, and formulated in accordance with the Academy Trust's legal powers and duties in relation to 16-19 provision".

LAE's policy is arguably unfair for the reasons mentioned in my pp. However, unlike with 11-18 schools, there is no process to refer it to the adjudicator to formally determine that is unfair. I think you would need to complain directly to the DfE.

But it is legal because it’s a sixth form college rather than a school sixth form?

... it also disadvantages students from schools that don't do grade predictions for GCSEs. Many will give minimum target grades based on some criteria (often just SATs results, therefore very unreliable) but not predicted grades.

@PrincessOfPreschool I meant it would be illegal because it breaches the national schools admissions code (which doesn't apply to sixth form colleges).

It isn't opaque. The full policy can be found here: https://www.lae.ac.uk/227/apply-to-lae-stratford
I haven't gone through all of it, but here are a couple of examples in their oversubscription criteria:

"5. applicants attending a state funded secondary school in Newham at the time the
application for admission is made;"

This would be a breach for a school sixth form because they are not allowed to use borough boundaries to define admissions priority areas. See footnote 24 of the code.

"7. applicants with the highest levels of predicted attainment, i.e. applicants will be
ranked by the mean average GCSE score of their best 8 GCSEs (predicted or
attained)."

This would be a breach of clause 14 of the code because it is unclear and not objective. It is unclear because the beginning of the sentence refers to "Predicted" grades, and the end of the sentence refers to "Predicted or Attained" grades. It is not objective because any use at all of predicted grades is subjective.

They then go on to say:
"These criteria shall be applied consistently at every stage of the application process
from initial application, to the making of provisional offers, the provision of all
guidance and final enrolment."

I can see what they are doing here. They are using predicted grades to make provisional offers, and attained grades to make final offers. The schools adjudicator rules against school sixth forms that do this because it disadvantages students who outperform their subjective predicted grades.

LAE is bonkers. Def enroll at the other one asap! They are the only place I know to run a post-results system. It’s brutal.

How did you find that out please? I’m curious to how I may find similar info about a different school. Thank you!

6,500 applicants, 1200 provisional offers, 275 places.

How have you found out the number of applicants and the number of provisional offers please?

@PrincessOfPreschool LAE is a sixth form college, not a school sixth form, so unfortunately it doesn't have to comply with the national admissions code. If it did, then its admissions policy would be illegal.

It is still meant to be fair and transparent, but the process for challenging that is unclear. Unlike school policies, it can't be challenged via the Schools Adjudicator.

This is becoming more of an issue because the academies programme has created some very academically selective sixth form colleges. (Academies are fine in my opinion, so long as the rules are clear, but on sixth form college admissions they aren't clear).

Looking at LAE S, it seems a bit woolly on category 7 regarding predicted / actual results, but otherwise clear that they rank candidates on the mean average of their best 8 GCSE scores. I expect it will vary dependent on the preferred subject combinations and what has been chosen by the candidates under higher preference categories such as LAC, PP etc. Their Yr. 12 PAN is 275 and they state they make approx. 1200 provisional offers.

Is this tiffin?

I’ve just looked up LAE and they make 1200 provisional offers for 275 places. That does sound quite tough. Though I guess not everybody will decide to go there as they will apply for multiple places.

Not LAE, but a grammar school. It’s the normal way of doing things at the grammars by us. I think most people who were given a provisional offer got in on results day or the day after. They seem to know how many provisional places to offer. Plenty of people didn’t get a provisional offer at all, so think positive!

We had this last year with DD1. She had her place confirmed at 8pm on results day. They used average point score of all GCSEs taken. DD1’s school, they look for an APS of 7.5 + or 8+ for maths A level. It will vary hugely by school and they should be able to give you an idea now of what average they are looking for.

Sixth form enrolment can be a really complicated process because of the number of variables (GCSE grades, courses on offer, course scheduling etc). I don't think it's uncommon for students to keep their options open until late on, and to attend enrolment at more than one institution.

For my DD we thought she was sorted and had chosen her college, but then when we went to enrol they couldn't make her timetable work and we ended up going to enrolment at another college too. Then in the end the first college sorted the timetable clash and she started there. The colleges seemed unfazed by the chopping and changing!

Can you give them a call and ask about previous years? Or what kind of numbers v places they have offered?

I think a lot comes down to subject choice as well - things like maths will be highly competitive, music maybe not so much.