What does your sixth form child do as well as A Levels?

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

At an information evening yesterday, 'enrichment activities' were mentioned as taking place one afternoon a week (sports, volunteering etc). Dd was dubious about 'being told what hobbies I have to have' - I think it's pretty good.

Just wondering what is standard, and what sixth formers usually do besides their core subjects in any schools you know of, if you please? This is as well as the normal 'schooly' things you get by dint of just being in a school (school council, clubs, productions and so on): I'm talking about timetables activities in which you must take part.

I'm not a parent but I work in a girls' school (independent) and all our sixth formers have to volunteer for at least two hours a week-it's their choice where and lots of them do it for much more than the two hours. They do things like: charity shop shelf stacking, helping in care homes, hospitals, reading to primary school pupils, youth groups...

Every girl in UVI also has a responsibility within the school (it's a small school though-I guess this wouldn't work if you had 200 in UVI!) so as well as the Head Girl there are three deputies plus Head Librarian, Head of Sports, Head Boarder etc. All the positions are important in some way so nobody ends up with 'corridor monitor' or anything like that!

All the LVI girls are attached to a tutor group from Year 7-11 and they go to their afternoon registration session, act as peer support, help with prep etc.

Thanks kaloo - I probably should have thought to make the OP addressed to teachers as well as parents!

What about sport, does that remain compulsory? This sixth has a cap of 240 in both years, I think.

DS1 did jazz band, orchestra (both trumpet), rock band (guitar),volunteering in old people's home and underwater hockey(not school organised). All at least 2 hrs a week.

DS2 did jazz band (sax), DofE gold, school rep on a multi-school charity thing, riding for the disabled and underwater hockey. Spent longer than 2hrs pw on most of these.

Kept them out of trouble and contributed to great PSs and CVs.

I agree - was that stuff voluntary, or did they have to spend a certain amount of time on it?

Also they have to be in at 8.50 whether they have a lesson or not, which she is not impressed by!

It was voluntary and was mostly in the evenings ie go home for a couple of hours and then go out again. The school was very encouraging of extracurricular stuff and most of the kids did quite a lot. School hours were fixed for them too.

Sport remains compulsory in our VI form but they don't have to do team games anymore if they don't want to, so they can choose to go for a run, or do swimming or riding for instance.

I think the extra curricular stuff is paramount to the girls being well rounded and sane to be honest. It's useful for their uni applications but it's far more useful at making sure they don't spend every spare hour studying and that they have fun and do something every day they can feel proud of, even if they're not the most academic of pupils.

Sounds like your dd has similar views to my ds ,however it's a case of weighing up having to do the extras with what the benefits are of that sixth form over a more college type enviroment.

Ds decided to stay at sixth form and put up with some of the strictures re games and timings ,as his final report said " he bore any restrictions with good grace"!

He did CCF,Young Enterprise,DofE in lower sixth,debating ,and also wrote for the sixth form newspaper.He was also in a couple of plays and continued his LAMDA.

At his school games was compulsory one afternoon a week but there was quite a bit of variety of activity and they were in practice flexible in Upper sixth in essay crisis and exam periods .In lower sixth they had to be in all day ,in Upper Sixth some flexibility and could go home at last per one period in day if no further commitment.

Where we are, it is not just a choice between school and college (which I'm really not that keen on) but between lots of schools and college - there are about four schools with sixth forms, and several without. So we'll do the rounds of them in the Autumn, but I would really like her to stay where she is. It will be interesting to see if all this compulsory activity applies everywhere.

The problem is everywhere uses the same 10-15 words to give a generic and not very helpful picture: individual, develop, focus, outstanding, support, vision.... blah blah blah. What school is not going to say it is committed to the individual learning needs of every pupil?

I misunderstood, I'm sorry, my fault, I thought you were asking about the extra stuff that they did, not school compulsory stuff. Yes, they had that too, on Weds afternoon. There was quite a choice but it was no more than 2 hrs iirc and was not compulsory after Christmas in Upper Sixth.

No, I am interesting in that too, nemno! I did start out asking about what was compulsory, but all info is good!

Thinking about it there was overlap between the voluntary and compulsory activities. One son started playing music for OAPs on a weds and ended up doing more of that outside school. Because some of his older friends did RDA on Weds one son volunteered for it on Saturdays from when he was 15. Some DofE planning and training happened then too but it had been voluntary when he did bronze and silver in the years before. Like Kaloobear I think it is a great idea, they might be exposed to something they would not have thought of.

Dd1s school had a compulsory General Studies/Critical Thinking/Sports Leadership session (which everyone managed to opt out of as they "had too much work" ). Everything else was voluntary, but supported by the school - Extended Project, DofE, House leadership. No compulsory sports, but I think there were several voluntary sessions,as well as after-school clubs.

LOL about the identikit web sites Nit.

Imagine if one said...'We do our best on limited resources. Frankly, at sixteen, they should just get on with it.'

Or how about. 'Our results are marvelous, but frankly they ought to be considering the entrance requiremenst'

We focus on each individual pupil's strengths, in order to offer them a structured yet nurturing environment in which they may flourish to the very best of their abilities. We're not so hot with the sport, though, to be fair.

We focus on every pupil's indivdual strengths, especially the girls, who we are keen to attract, to boost the results.

If DS was staying at his private school for sixth, he'd have compulsory sport once a week. There's a massive activities programme which includes things such as knitting, scuba diving, all team sports &bee keeping. There's over 100 to choose from & sixth formers need to pick 4 activities each week rather than 5 in other years. School is non selective & offers a mix of A Levels, NVQs & BTEC. Compulsory study times & responsibilities plus the usual DofE & work experience but these are voluntary.

DS is joining sixth form college where his big sis used to go. Must take 4 academic subjects but that's it. Oh, my son has dyslexia & has been awarded extra time in exams & to keep this he has to attend weekly group LS support. He would rather not, but as he's studying 4 of the 6 hardest A Levels, any extra help is important. Can see why he chose to go from private to state as the workload is much less than his current school &/or any of his friends public schools. DS is is also under the impression there'll be less rules now he's not boarding?...he's in for a rude awakening!!

DD1 is at State 6th form/FE college. She's doing the IB, which is quite heavy on teaching and includes 6 subjects, a reflective type course, an extended essay and CAS (creativity, action, service- 150 hours over 2 years). Also does the G&T type programme of enrichment activities, mainly lectures sometimes from very inspirational speakers. Through the year (now winding down as near year end) she has done hockey, Mini UN, debating, Ten Tors, DofE and a number of other things I can't quite remember (but some crossover between things so not as heavy as it looks). Lots on offer there.

DS (just finished 1st year at university was an independent school for 6th form. He did a lot of RAF cadet stuff and Ten Tors. There was no compulsory sports thank goodness (he's not ateam sport person).

Meant to say Ten tors and DofE are not compulsory, but everything else is pretty much required. The hockey was part of enrichment on Wednesday afternoons which is compulsory. All activities on the G&T programme are compulsory once you've signed up to it. Debating and Mini UN also part of the G&T programme so pretty much compulsory too.

When I was in sixth form (and to the best of my knowledge it hasn't changed) in addition to our A-Levels we had compulsory:

• sport three times a week (i.e. 4.5h)
• "service" once a week (2h) either DofE, cadets, or in the community which was typically going into lonely elderly people's homes for a cup of tea and a chat

and General Studies (not A-Level; a portfolio thing) 3h/w which was a mixture of sporting, cultural and academic. I did some canoeing, some Shakespeare, a musicals class, um, can't remember.

And that was on top of the completely optional debating club, guest speakers club, drama, music, art, etc.

We ended up with very strong personal statements. But then it was a very expensive school.