Moving from a boarding school after GCSE

[Watchinghercook]

My DS is in year 11 at a full boarding school and we have decided over Christmas that we want to move after GCSE's..We should have come to this decision earlier..He doesn't have predicted grades, we would like to start the application without informing his current school.

Does anyone have experience of this ?

Based on what I learned when my DS1 was applying for sixth form, also to study Maths, Further Maths and Physics but with a different 4th option.

I think for an oversubscribed sixth form or college and with Further Maths as one of the subjects he wants to study (and hoping to continue either with Economics or Maths that does seem wise) your son is going to need his current school to provide predicted grades and a reference.

A lot of potential students in the state sixth form system will make multiple applications and hold multiple offers, so schools/colleges won't be as oversubscribed as they look in advance of GCSE results. However, the Maths and Further Maths cohorts will be smaller than the ones just doing Maths. Also, DS1 is in a group of students who will take Maths at the end of year 12 and FM next year - this would have been the case for at least one of the other colleges he applied to too. They've done two thirds of the course already.

You must have some idea on where he is academically by now. Just use that as the predicted grades. E.g. you should know if he's a 4 or and 8.....the grades needed for A levels are surprisingly low.....5's in some of our 6th forms.
Just call the school you are applying to....if you can get someone to talk to then great. Otherwise apply anyway. Just make a not somewhere....final mock results known in Springtime.

@Mumdiva99 I don't think anywhere would accept parents' estimate of their kids' predicted grades. My memory is that DS1 did the rest of his application(s) and that his school (no sixth form) added the predicted grades. They are also asked for some kind of reference.

OP's son wants to apply to one specific sixth form, which is apparently competitive, but if he is being predicted high grades and he gets them (or comes close), that isn't necessarily a problem, as many students make multiple applications and hold a number of offers up until results day.