Why is 6th form thought of more highly than attending FE college ?

[Summersunshinee]

I can never understand why if you say that you attend 6th form at school you are thought of more so than if you attended FE college.

I would feel that if anything it would be more impressive to attend FE college as you made the decision to go somewhere else and try something different /

Has anyone studied a practical subject alongside a more theoretical one ?

Maybe define 'practical' and 'theoretical'? I mean, Chemistry is pretty damn practical.

What i mean is in a practical sense something along the lines of bricklaying, plumbing and in a theoretical sense English literature or Maths

Does Health and Social Care count as practical? What about Product Design, Dance or Music? One of my three did one of those alongside 2 A levels.

If you're talking purely about hands on vocational stuff then you'd mostly find those at FE colleges, not 6th forms. There are FE colleges that offer both vocational and A level options and it would be nice if those kinds of mix and match options were offered within sensible travel time/distance for everyone.

@pointythings Yeah i would count health & social care and Product design.
Dance and Music less so but that's just my opinion.

I feel that a lot of middle class parents on here look down on the working classes and would shudder in fear if their children who probably call Alexander or Eleanor were to choose a vocational path or god forbit study one.

Forgot to ask last time did you encourage your son to go to an open/taster day at college so he could see what it was like and make his own decision ?

He was academic, there was nothing at the local college for him. He did Maths, Physics and further maths A levels . Local college doesn't do A levels
DD ended up there eventually ,she was seen as an odd one being too clever. Our local college is purely vocational, with good facilities if you want to be a hair dresser, chef , hospitality and in DD's case Health and Social Care but no good for A levels

I feel that a lot of middle class parents on here look down on the working classes and would shudder in fear if their children who probably call Alexander or Eleanor were to choose a vocational path or god forbit study one.

OP, you would fare better on these threads if you took that gigantic class chip off your shoulder. The vast, vast majority of parents want what their DC are passionate about and trust them to make good choices. As @bruffin has made clear, many know by the time they finish GCSEs where they want to go, what they want to do and how they can get there. Two of mine were like that - they wanted to study Ancient History and Marine Bio respectively, and to get there they needed A levels, not bricklaying. It wasn't for me to interfere with that. If either of them had wanted to be a builder, plumber or electrician I would equally have supported that, and I'm middle class as fuck.

Middle son (fostered) chose a mix to keep his options open and is currently working until he decides what he wants to do re further education.

DH (who left school at 15) would love it if DD did a trade. She would most likely earn far more as a plumber than as an English Lit graduate but plumber, carpenter, electrician just isn’t her. His argument is ‘you can’t bang a nail in over the internet’. True. But doesn’t change what makes DD happy.

It is great our young people have choice. College, sixth form, academic, vocational, all choice. I do think some are ready to leave at 16 and some of the ‘choices’ are a bit artificial.

I wonder if we will have a similar debate about whether we are confident to be seen but an apprentice doctor (as per recent Government announcement) vs a doctor who got the uni qualification first and then got the experience.

Ultimately we are not all the same, we learn I’m different ways, let’s hope both sixth forms and colleges continue to cater for all the variety that our young people and the economy needs.

@PettsWoodParadise 👏👏👏👏

@pointythings No need for bad language.

@PettsWoodParadise Apprentice doctors sound like a great idea. Have you mentioned doing a trade ?

Hi @Summersunshinee you ask if I have mentioned doing a trade. but who do you mean to whom have I addressed that question?

We have had long debates in our family over the dinner table. DH is a rather poor example of someone who left school early, he didn't ever stick at any job other than home and family and has been great at looking after that (I am terrible at ironing or cleaning and only developed a need to do it when DH was undergoing cancer treatment). My father left school at 14 and ended up teaching post graduates in a specific 'trade'. I've worked alongside Oxbridge graduates who've vocalised that their boss (me!) went to a 'mediocre university' I've seen extremes of the educational spectrum.

I have friends whose DCs have have their own beauty businesses and in their mid twenties are nearly earning what (as a graduate in a well paid job) I do and they love their job. I have a dear Niece who went to Uni only because her academic brother did and it possibly wasn't the best choice other than to prove to herself she could do it which was 100% important to her and helped her mental health but was an expensive way of doing that. She still works in the supermarket job that she was in at 16. Her academic brother has gone to another country to pursue an amazing career.

Maybe I am so sanguine as I am an only child and my DD is an only child, it is easier to be your own person in such circumstances and not compare or think 'I should go to college as my brother has, I should go to university because my sister has, I should study subject x because it pays more' because you are comparing yourself to someone or to some value in the economy. Which is what I think this thread is all about, comparing. Stop comparing, just do what is right for yourself.

@PettsWoodParadise Well yes i meant that have you mentioned it to your DD about doing a trade post 16.

@PettsWoodParadise also i feel bad for your niece as she perhaps made a wrong choice and is probably in a job which isn't the most stimulating ever.

@Summersunshinee this is Mumsnet, bad language is allowed. Live with it.

Why are you so obsessed with trades?

Apprentice doctors are an incredibly bad idea. I work in the NHS and I haven't met a single person there who thinks it's a good idea. Medicine requires academia alongside hands on practical training. Always has and always will.

Now apprentice archaeologists - that I can get behind. Everyone involved is already dead so no risk to life.

I`m not obsessed we just need more people doing them and also this would be better than some not all pointless A levels.

A doctor learning on the job in a real life hospital alongside academic study sounds like the best of both worlds to me.

Also i work for a health care organisation also.

@PettsWoodParadise there are bound to be young people who end up going to university (or into a trade) when it is not right for them because of pressure from family. People really should know better. My parents were both academics - but they never respected my DSis any less for not going to university. She's smarter than I am, but she has a magical gift with horses, so that is where she went and she now runs a very successful dressage and livery yard.

A doctor learning on the job in a real life hospital alongside academic study sounds like the best of both worlds to me.

This is what happens already! All medical students have to do placements in hospitals. And when they qualify, they continue to learn and train and do exams whilst doing the job. But let's face it, working as a doctor requires considerable academic ability - so I would only support the idea of apprentice doctors if these were degree apprenticeships where people with suitable academic credentials were admitted. The idea was mooted by this government as an idea of getting doctors on the cheap, because they want everything on the cheap.

Excuse my ignorance but what is the difference between the 2 ?

You need to have A levels to get into a degree apprenticeship. So you'd be 18, not 16, and have 2 years of serious academic work behind you.

Tell me, are you still of the opinion that it would be a good idea to have a compulsory vocational subject post 16?

Ah ok that clears things up.

Where have you got that idea from ? it`s not been mentioned in this thread ?

But under certain circumstances it could work and have it`s merits I think.

Oh, so that may have been a different poster. The obsession with vocational and trade education was similar, hence the confusion. I think the idea has zero merit.

Yes, I thought that was implied when I said DH wanted DD to do a trade.

DS is doing his degree apprenticeship in pharmacrutical sciences ATM . It will take 5 years going into uni 1 day a week for lecture. It's hard work as he has just had exams and having to juggle revising with his work responsibilities.

Is this really a thing? I thought any education after 16 was called college

We are in Hampshire, and as far as I know schools only go to 16, and after it is college for A levels or Btecs or a combination thereof?

Both my DC got reduced offers from places like Bristol and the London uni's due to "circumstances/background" (we've been wondering what they mean, but happy to accept )

Could that be because they apply from a college?

No faux-naïveté on my part, am from another country so did not go to school here myself

I thought college and sixth form were the same