Moving town for 6th form? Could it work? Or other options...

[planningtomakeaplan]

Long, sorry!

We live in a town with no decent 6th form.

Kids from here tend to go to 6th forms in neighbouring towns. One isn't a proper 6th form - it's a higher education college offering all sorts of courses including A-Levels. I need to look more at it but at this point I don't like the look of it.

The other gets better results than any in this town, but not brilliant.

DS is in year 8, academic and great at rugby. His school is OK. It gets good results but - I've discovered - they're doing that by teaching to the test at the expense of creativity or exploring ideas (or even reading whole books in English, they just use extracts).

I think he'd really benefit from being in an environment where wider learning is encouraged. DS has a lot of promise, academically. I feel I've failed him by not sending him to a good enough school in the first place. My own 6th form was brilliant, I'm hoping he can get a decent 16-18 experience also, somehow...

We do have a local private school, which has a great reputation - but I haven't a hope in hell of being able to afford the fees - it'd only be possible if DS could get a scholarship and then we could apply for a bursary. So worth a punt, maybe, but not something we could rely on at all.

We're not too far from a city with an outstanding 6th form, and I'd love to live there. But would moving town for 6th form be a nuts idea?

If we could move between year 11 and 12th that'd be fine, but that's not going to work because of admissions deadlines being in the autumn term before I think. So we'd have to move some time between now and the end of his GSCEs - is that unfair as too disruptive?

WWYD?

@TeenPlusCat

I suspect you might find the majority of schools 'teach to the test', especially at the moment with time lost to covid.

Yes, I think you're probably right. (Well, if we're talking about state schools, anyway).

Did you see the thread the other day about whether children in schools read whole books in English or just extracts? (DS's school is in the latter category). IIRC it was split - some DC went to schools where they were expected to read the whole book, others were just reading the extracts needed to pass the test.

Regardless of what the norm is, I think DS would do better in a school where thinking and discussing ideas was encouraged. This isn't available to us, though, so we'll have to do the best we can to support him.

I'm hoping it might be at 6th form though - I remember loving my own 6th form as I felt we were treated as adults, and I loved the sharing of ideas, decent teaching and depth of learning compared to GSCEs at my old school.

If I don't do anything about this, he won't have a chance to go to a good 6th form at all.

@Pythonesque

It does sound like you should look more closely at options for moving in the near future.

Don't ignore the private school - if you think it may be a "fit" for your son, ask to speak with the bursar and find out more about their bursary policies - many schools offer bursaries completely separately to scholarships, though yes at some you need to be scholarship level before being considered for a bursary. It may be that they would consider your son for entry even prior to 6th form and be able to financial support to a level you can afford - you won't know unless you ask.

If it then appears to be at least a possible option, have a good look at the school with your son as well.

Good luck finding the right combination of where to live and the schooling option that will do well by your son.

Thanks :) I've looked at the documents on the private school website - I didn't even realise they did Year 9 entry or that this was normal for private school! If I had, I might have thought abotu this sooner! They do do bursaries as well as scholarships.

But it looks like we've missed the deadline for applications for next September. Also, I notice the application for scholarships in year 9 on an academic basis is on a broad range of subjects, whereas for 6th form, you can choose your best subject.

Yes I was thinking you'd have probably missed deadlines for year 9 entry, but don't feel you can't contact them and ask anyway. They may have flexibility for interested state school entrants, they may have occasional year 10 places come up. And if they don't, you can at least go on a mailing list to be contacted at the right time for 6th form applications.