To think it's outrageous that there is nowhere in my town of 200000 people offering Alevels

[Bestseller]

There no getting away from it, this is a deprived area and with educational provision like this there is little prospect of social mobility.

We have 5 large secondary schools. Not one of them has a sixth form. There is a further education college but it has merged with two other colleges in surrounding towns and ours now only offers vocational qualifications. To do A levels you either need to go to sixth form at a school 8 miles in one direction (with rubbish public tramsport links) or a 25 min (expensive) train journey in the other direction.

Obviously for committed students with supportive families , that's not insurmountable but another example of how life is even harder for those whose opportunities are more limited in the first place.

Is this usual in deprived areas? Who do I need to take it up with?

Thing is what benefits are available that a 16-18 year old can claim independantly if they are living in the parental home but there isn't the support for them? That and most jobs available for that demographic with only GSCEs are a either a shitshow or impossible if you are rural or haven't access to a transport network?

That's shocking. I live in the SE and there's a similar population to you. Almost all secondaries have a Sixth Form offering academic BTECs and A levels. There are specialist colleges for vocational courses. Within 3 miles there's 4 secondary schools with A levels and if you take a bus you can get to dozens of schools within a 45 minute travel time. (Including 2 grammars) Bus passes are £40 per 4 weeks.

I would contact your local MP and push them into sorting this out. Stuff like this exacerbates the North/South educational divide.

We also live in an area where y12/13 children can quite easily find part-time work. My son in y13 reckons more than half of his classmates work part-time.

Contact the Sutton Trust
www.suttontrust.com

Then write to your (Conservative) MP telling them you've contacted the Sutton Trust, and send him/her a link to this thread. If I were you I'd have no qualms about naming your MP. That lack of provision is appalling and a total disgrace.

With jobs it's always a lottery and there are some decent ones out there for 16-18 but that doesn't mean they're everywhere. Plus if you are summer-born you have an extra disadvantage particularly if you are 15 at the time of your GCSE exams.

I live in a city with a population of approx 270,000 and 14 schools. None of the secondaries apart from the catholic ones have ever had 6th forms instead there is a 6th form college offering A Levels & Btecs and an FE college with more vocational courses. A couple opened 6th forms but very few chose to stay on, preferring the college.

Depending which side of the city you live that could involve a 8 and a half mile journey. (It is actually 8.8 miles for us). It’s always been like that (I went there 30 years ago) Yesterday is a traditionally deprived area and the local schools have had a poor reputation in the past but the 6FC has always had a good reputation and it’s just accepted that’s what you do.

No A level provision in our borough (central south coast) and we pay £600+ for DS to travel 15 miles to a sixth form college. It involves nearly 3 hours of commuting a day, as the bus takes a convoluted route picking up at every village en route. Some friends are paying £1200+ for train passes to the outstanding college a few miles further on.

Awful for the OP. Especially now that leaving education is supposed to be at 18 at the earliest.

Its not awful for me or my DC in that I'm part of the problem because i sent my Dc to school in the next town and that's where they go for sixth form. They get a bus which costs me c. £80pm each and takes them 45.mins each way.

It is awful for the children I work with who have no hope of breaking the cycle of deprivation, minimal parental support and low expectations

Bestseller If these children have no hope of breaking the cycle of deprivation, minimal parental support and low expectations, do many of them actually achieve good enough GCSE results that they would be reasonably able to do academic A-Levels?

If not then wouldn't it be better to advocate for better primary and secondary provision first?

That is an issue too, but yes some of them do get enough to meet the college or some of the sixth form requirements but they don't see it as the natural progression for them.

So if there was somewhere closer to do A-Levels, how would you get these young adults to do them rather than going to the local college with their mates? I imagine its a chicken and egg situation.

I think you're determined not to get it Walkingdead. If it was "normal" for these children to do A levels they wouldn't be doing something different to their mates. If their schools had sixth form places to fill, their teachers would be filling them.

If their schools had sixth form places to fill, their teachers would be filling them It doesn't work like that, I have several schools in my area closed their sixth forms because they can't get enough pupils into them to make them viable. And a few others getting very bad results because they allow to many pupils into them that just aren't suitable and so fail their exams.

If schools had one hundred + pupils willing and able to do A Levels then in this time of cost savings they would be running them to get the money.

So I dont think offereing A levels is going to magically break the cycle these children are in.

Why don't the schools provide transport? My old high school covered a huge area for students and the furthest buses travelled about 20 miles, which would have taken the bus an hour to do. But the school provided the buses for the students, we didn't pay.

And then MPs and the media like to blame universities for hampering social mobility by not accepting enough students from poor socio-economic areas. Now, I'm not saying that university admissions are perfect but this thread makes it clear just how many obstacles are out there in terms of opportunity, accessibility, finances and aspirations to even get to the point of applying to university. Undoubtedly some who would flourish at university as opposed to on vocational courses (which are absolutely the best option for some people) are missing out through no real fault of their own.

But the school provided the buses for the students, we didn't pay.

It would have been the LEA not the school. But most cannot afford to provide transport.

According to the find your school widget on Gov.Uk there is not a single school offering A levels in our Local Authority.

And I agree that the "you could cycle it" comments are a bit daft.

I cycle just under 7 miles to work, so nearly 14 miles a day. And believe me it can be grim. I was so cold yesterday even with a duvet jacket, thermals, buff, hat, gloves that I had an awful headache by the time I got to work. I was also so sweaty I needed to change.....ideally I would have had a shower but I'm a slattern so had a quick deodorant spray instead.

I can't imagine most teenagers managing it, especially with the amount of books, etc they might need. Some teenagers aren't sporty/active and wouldn't cope with it.

I cycle in the cold, dark, wet and get to work soaked sometimes. I refuse to cycle when it's windy so last week only cycled one day.

I have a good cyclepath to use, if that wasn't there I probably wouldn't do it.

That sound awful.

We've lived in two deprived areas - one part of a larger town so while the catchment secondary had no sixth form they were trying to set one up but a 30-minute walk- very doable- would have taken the kids to other options - 6th form at other secondary’s.

Current location there is a sixth form but to offer full range of A-levels the local schools have had to all get together - and they have busses between campuses. I've no idea how well it works in practise.

@bigKiteFlying we have the consortium college set up in our area. DD2 has just been through it. It is making the best of a bad job and is without doubt sub optimal.

The bus is late/breaks down
There is inconsistency when subjects are split over two (or more sites). Teaching can end up uncoordinated
Time consuming
Timetable conflicts

Only offering vocational courses post GCSE does not encourage students to excel at the GCSE level. Entry requirements for vocational courses tend to be lower than for A level. Why push yourself to excel at GCSE if there is no reward?

I guess that it must be Medway

(not Farnborough, Swindon, Crawley, Slough)

OP says the locals widely don't value further education; so no surprise there isn't provision if almost no demand.

The issue isn't the lack of very local provision (which probably isn't economically viable without the rest of the secondary provision suffering), it's the lack of free travel to suitable tertiary education.

The issue shouldn't be whether further education is economically viable, it's a social need, not a branch of M&S.

Bestseller I'm shocked to read this.

£900 bus pass? WTAF?

Can you contact the national press about this? I feel like this is a documentary in the making. Especially as you are next to a very affluent area.

Medway isn’t really just one town though, is it?

I’m really nosey about where it is. OP is that population definitely correct?