State school 6th forms oversubscribed

[LordGiveMeStrength]

AIBU to be concerned about the impact the new VAT on private schools will have on state school 6th forms?

Our local 6th form open days have been jam packed with so many year 11s moving from private schools.

Issues I see:

1. kids who have been at the local state secondary school since year 7 have been told their space in the 6th form is not guaranteed and if they don’t get as high GCSE results as other potential pupils they will not have a spot. The nearest private schools have amazing GCSE results so very likely to displace existing students to other state school options a far distance from their homes.
2. infrastructure - the local school is already heaving so accommodating a huge influx is not possible, buildings are already crumbling and it will take a long time before investment actually happens to improve the facilities.
3. false economy- currently kids in private schools don’t cost the government to be educated. Government’s plans are that money raised from VAT will pay for additional teachers (but I don’t see that happening immediately). If lots of private schools kids move to the state system not only will government not collect that VAT, but they will all be liable for educating pupils who previously were in the private sector. I believe the current cost from central government to educate in 6th form is £5k with additional payments for more academic subjects (eg further maths A level pupils will equal an additional £900 per pupil per year in the state schools). Apologies if these sums aren’t correct.

https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/private-school-parents-vat-state-sixth-forms-3473062?srsltid=AfmBOopXOi5842QMq-qO1NqHGR9g9-4BOi6Gc0v_dlhBbFBTMmU5Prsi

@OhCrumbsWhereNow
I'm not sure I like the ethos of raising the bar for current pupils. It doesn't show much in the way of loyalty and recognition of pupils' affection for and contribution to the school.
Of course have minimum standards, but to raise them at this stage will cause the kids so much unnecessary and additional stress.

But some of this will come out in the wash.

I'd never heard of a state sixth form that doesn't have enough places for all its current Year 11s that want them. Presumably this must have come about because of a surfeit of places elsewhere, and we will see extra places created if there suddenly isn't a surfeit because so many private school students are taking them up.

Schools with the highest GCSE entry grades getting the highest A Level results is a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. If the students with the slightly-below-highest GCSEs are now going to another sixth form, all that means is that the results at that sixth form will rise and it will become equally desirable for a slightly different cohort of students.

I live in an area where there is a lot of new housing being built. Typically what happens is that there is a lot of new housing, an influx of students, and people find it a "hard" year to get into typical schools, sixth forms etc, then more provision is created and it all readjusts.

Maybe it will be something people think about when choosing a secondary school in future? My kids went to/ go to the local catchment comp. Not the greatest results overall ( decent ofsteds though) but very inclusive, great mental health support etc . Made very clear that priority in sixth form was for existing pupils and that minimum grades were guidance as long as a pupil could cope with the course. Also a range of BTEC / A level options.
Not a perfect school by any means but I’m so glad mine didn’t go for the super selective grammar schools as this school tries to support all children. Hasn’t stopped either getting offers from great unis - in a weird way maybe even helped!

It sounds like loads of students change in which case the students probably don't care that much about going to a different sixth form. Where I live there is a fair amount of movement in sixth form. One of my DC switched and knew several pupils at the new school plus made knew friends. It's good preparation for going to university.

There is only enough space for at best a third of the year group.

Lots do change anyway and are happy to do so especially those not doing A levels.

This thread was pointing out that there is anxiety about oversubscription of state 6th forms and increased competition. That is definitely the case listening to parents.

Especially as if you just miss the ask in your own school you are then competing for an external place elsewhere which is harder to get.

This really isn’t the norm away from London.Quite the reverse. This thread is an inaccurate attempt to whip up a storm over school fees. There has always been movement from the private sector post GCSEs.

Why are they oversubscribed if many current students are leaving anyway? Are they taking a much smaller number of pupils in the sixth form? Seems odd that they don't just expand so they have capacity for students that are already there.

Why do the government’s own funding projections suggest increasing numbers and funding challenges for this age group then? (See page 19 of this document for one):

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9194/CBP-9194.pdf#page35

Oh sorry, I didn't realise we weren't allowed to discuss things if they aren't the case in every area of the UK.

Around 450 students in each year - Y7-11, we were told enough spaces for around a quarter of the year group.

London isn't easy to expand when you are on a small site. They are planning to expand to around 250 a year in the 6th form.

They are oversubscribed because lots of current students want to stay but won't get the grades, and lots of students from other local comprehensives and private schools are keen to move there.

Because they’d need to hire more teachers! A-level classes can’t be taught in groups of 30-35 like lower school classes are.

Again, as with your posts above, you don’t seem to have any idea about teaching. Do you think that teachers can simply absorb big rises in their prep and marking workload? Why do you think that’s the case when in no other job would that be possible?

How on earth do you think A-level teaching works? More students in the class means a lot more prep and marking for the teacher, and much less individual time per student to cover the material / practicals. It isn’t like teaching year 7 - A-level material requires more input from the teacher per student per class, and much more submitted work and marking from the student. The work takes the teacher much more time to prepare and mark. You can’t just add more students with no appreciable effect on this.

So you are talking about one specific school rather than the whole of London. Not sure why it is so hard to expand the number of sixth form places given pupils usually have lessons in the rest of the school. They aren't usually confined to a specific sixth form site. Obviously pupils have to meet certain grades in order to be able to do a levels i have never heard of a comprehensive or even a grammar raising them to ridiculously high levels to chuck out internal candidates and take external candidates. Why would they do that?

They are certainly taught in class sizes of 30 in the sixth form in the grammar schools where I live, particularly for maths and sciences.

Multiple schools in this part of London with high grade requirements for 6th form places. A lot also want a particular attendance score for previous school years.

Why would they do that? Because if you can select high scoring candidates for the 6th form, you get more Oxbridge, medicine, vet science and RG places and your school goes up the ranks and attracts ever more academic and focused children.

Why wouldn't a school want to have a highly focused, high achieving cohort? Less disruption, less behaviour management and a happier life for the staff.

Nice try, but I do university admissions and as part of that we get data about the class size each A-level student is taught in.

Do you really think that you can simply increase A-level numbers without employing more teachers?

There have been many educated kids moved to state for 6th form to get into university. Oxbridge/Russell group look favourably on state educated students as it improves their stats. This has been going on for several years.

Nice try, but I do university admissions and as part of that we get data about the class size each A-level student is taught in.

How?

I think it's fairly universally understood that if you are talking about something that only affects one school, or one town or one particular area or a particular type of school, then you make your thread specific to this and don't try to suggest that it affects the whole of the UK.

If I posted that all men liked podcasts because my DH does, I would have a lot of people telling me that they knew lots of men that hated podcasts/preferred cycling/didn't have any access to podcasts so DH should think himself lucky.

I know they can increase the size of a class to 30 without employing more teachers because my children were in classes of 30 for some subjects in the sixth form.

If the only reason they are high scoring is because they have been highly selective in the first place I am not sure why it would attract "ever more academic and focused" children. It doesn't say anything about the quality of teaching.

So: they clearly already have enough teachers to timetable that. As a result those teachers will already teach fewer lower school lessons (if they are in a school. Sixth form colleges are funded and staffed slightly differently to 11–18 schools.)

Completely different to asking existing teachers to double or triple their A-level workload. Do you honestly think that can be done with no increase in staffing? Do you think the average school sixth form can just add in loads more pupils without timetabling down the teachers’ lower school workload to compensate? Have you ever done any teaching?

It's interesting there's so much variation. Our (pretty leafy) outer London comps vary in minimum tariffs for internal applicants - from 6s (7 for maths) for academic subjects in the most sought after comp to 5s at the less popular ones. Ours is in the middle with a mix of 5s and 6s as the minimum.

The big "Outstanding" sixth form college has mixed grade requirements - 6s for maths and sciences, 4s for the rest.

The downside for private applicants to the school sixth forms is that they all prioritise existing students and have pretty small minimum PAN for external applicants (where the private students will be competing with other state students who want to change school for whatever reason.) For example ours has an external minimum PAN of 12 (out of 120 places.)

This thread has been a good reminder to check the relative starting point when looking at how good a school is based on results!

Really?

If you have a very academic child and are targeting very selective university courses or Oxbridge, are you going to try and send your child to:

A) a school with an high achieving cohort where they have significant experience of Oxbridge pathways and a peer group at the same level.

B) a lower achieving school where your child may be an outlier or they don't have the same level of experience of managing those pathways and providing the support.

Seems a no brainer to me. Otherwise why would grammar schools be so popular with parents of high achievers.

@noblegiraffe our applicants have to fill in a form with all these details, but we also have very detailed data available to us from the school references on this, plus data about each school and how it compares to LEA and national averages for pupil sizes at each level.

I write school references and they don't say class size for each class the pupil is in.

I'm pretty sure school-wide data wouldn't tell you how big individual classes are either.