Sixth form questions

[mmzz]

What is good info to find out when going to a sixth form open evening?

Teacher turnover for teaching A levels?
Expectation of cover lessons?
% who start the course, but for whatever reason don't sit the A level (thinking of St Olave's recent press coverage)?
Feasibility of starting an A level course, and realising its not for you, and then changing after a few weeks?

Is it acceptable to ask how many DC on average each year go to Russell Group universities, and how many, if any, go to Oxbridge? And also does the school have someone who can give information and advice to those considering Oxbridge? (Or is that all just too pushy - the equivalent of taking your 3 year old to a primary school open evening and asking what their G&T provision is like?)

OP You might be lucky and have a DC who doesn't/won't need pastoral support. But if you were to have a DC who

• felt overwhelmed at the size of the college
• was struggling with the work
• struggling to get on with peers (due to SpLD)
• suffered from anxiety in general
• etc.

then you would appreciate how helpful it would be to have a strong pastoral system in place. Not one that promised a tutor (that they never saw), or who said counselling was available (2 month waiting list), that gave a room for those struggling (so they then mixed with all the others in the same boat and reinforced issues and isolated them further, plus no additional support in the room).

@TeenTimesTwo don't get me wrong, Ds is very far from being self-assured. He's extremely shy and liable to feel crushed by the slightest set back. Its just I've never really had help from any school with helping him through this, so I wasn't looking for it from a 6th form.

and he's got a SPLD. To be fair the school arranged extra time etc for this, but we've never had someone having gentle chats with DS about how he feels.

Fair enough mmzz . Our secondary had/has very good pastoral care which DD1 made good use of, so when she went off to college and, despite assurances, it was pretty much non existent, she figuratively felt like she'd been dropped off a cliff.

I asked DD what she thought about contact time: she said she favoured quality over quantity.

Ha! I have a DC who would benefit from pastoral support but would also refuse it if offered (cantankerous, sigh). Best chance for us to support him is probably if 6th form has lots of automatic comms & is physically close to home.

I read a letter today that is sent by Ds's school to students about to join year 12. It said register on 1st day of term, tell us which subjects you want to do a levels in, and then a few days later, we'll tell you if we have enough students to run the course.

Won't it be a little late to find out the sixth form You've chosen doesn't offer the combination you wanted after all? It would be like a hotel in Greece saying book your holiday with us and after you've arrived and checked in, we'll let you know whether it's worth our time having the hotel open that week.