Sixth form advice

[QuestionFromMum]

Hi everyone,

My daughter is exploring her options for sixth form this September. She has received conditional offers from Nonsuch, Wallington High School for Girls, and The Henrietta Barnett School. She is also likely to receive offers from Tiffin Girls’, Wallington County Grammar (Boys), and Sutton Grammar.

We live in the Wallington area, so distance is a key factor in our decision. She is less likely to attend Henrietta Barnett or Tiffin girls due to the travel.

I’d appreciate any advice on which sixth form would be the best choice. Any insights on academic performance, student experience, or overall school environment would be really helpful.

Thanks in advance!

Can you give us an idea of what subjects she is hoping to study or future plans? That may help narrow down your choices…

Thanks for your reply.
She would like to take Mathematics, Economics, and History, (with English as a possible fourth subject if required). She is particularly interested in pursuing a future in Finance or Law.

Then I would look at performance for those specific subjects, also university destinations. Perhaps more though - for law she will need to balance excellent results with a good application so look for what she is interested in - Gold DofE, volunteering programmes, work experience, leadership opportunities within school, trips etc. It’s likely she will have ‘taster’ days later on the summer, attend these and get a feel for teaching style etc. I would also be tempted to ask the sixth form heads what experience they have prepping for law exams such as LNAT and what unis they gave got students into in the past to do law, in reality she doesn’t need to decide until after results are out in August…but I’m sure she will feel better to have a plan!

I wasn’t aware of the LNAT exam—thank you for letting me know! My husband and I both come from IT backgrounds, so we’re not very familiar with career paths in this field but will definitely consider your advice and will try and find more info on this.

On the subject of sixth form taster days, although it is absolutely not unusual to apply for more than one sixth form or to be holding more than one conditional offer, how is your DD actually going to attend all of those? At at least one of our local schools (admittedly not in any of the Sutton, Kingston or Barnet areas), attendance is expected as part of the process, not helped by overlapping dates for two of our DC.

However prestigious HBS may be, it seems a bit of an outlier for someone living in Wallington and not wanting to travel too far?

School open days and induction days have been spread out, which makes things manageable. She’s currently attending a private school in Stanmore and lives nearby, with her current school being very supportive of her decision. After completing her GCSEs, she plans to move to Wallington.

She recently attended an induction day at Henrietta Barnett, though that’s more of a backup option for us. While it’s undoubtedly a top school, she doesn’t prefer it due to the teaching standards not aligning with what she’s looking for.

@QuestionFromMum Not all law degrees require the LNAT exam. There’s around 8 that do: from memory, Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, UCL, SOAS, KCL, Bristol and Durham (Glasgow too but probably not worth going there if you want English law). Any academic 6th form will know the time of day on this. It’s not really an exam that can be taught and the higher status of the uni, the higher mark they will want.

Wallington seems a good choice to me.

@TizerorFizz Thank you do much for above info 🙏🏻