Which of these 3 6th form options do you like the sound of

[3sthemagicnumber]

Hi,

Just interested to canvas some opinion/experiences on the three options my DD has for Sixth Form. Obviously, decision will be hers, but always good to consider other perspectives.

DD is something of an all-round legend - head girl, lead in school musical, predicted high grades, 9s across the board in her mock mocks, nice part-time job, nice group of friends etc etc etc. Favourite subjects are sciences, and she's thinking of studying medicine or possibly biochemistry.

Sixth form options as follows:

1. Stay at school. 15 minute walk from home, known and loved by staff. (Very!) Small classes - I think there are 4 in Y13 chemistry and my nephew has just 2 in his Spanish A level group. School is a mixed-bag, been though a lot of changes recently. New head of 6th form really keen to make a success of it. Good Biology and Chemistry teachers; Maths more of an unknown as her (lovely) teacher is off on mat leave soon.
2. Sixth form college in nearest city. Huge college, great facilities, offers A levels and IB. This is where her core friends will go, and probably most of her current peer group. One-hour bus journey each way (DH works in said city sometimes though and could drive her some of the time). Lots of students travel there from our town and from a wide area.
3. Sixth form at a school in another town. Town is very deprived area, but school itself incredibly well resourced. There is a general 6th form and a kind of offshoot science and maths bit for high achievers (you need 8s to get in to it). Gets excellent results, runs some brilliant international programmes, offers a highly regarded medics academy. It sounds like a private school in terms of the opportunities offered, but is in one of the most deprived areas of the country. Talks a good game about pastoral care etc, but I don't know anyone with actual experience of it. About 75 per cent of students come from the immediate locality and 25 from further afield as DD would. One-hour journey each way. No one else she knows is likely to go there.

She had been fairly set on option 2, but now she's thinking option 3 might be the right thing to do academically, if more difficult socially. Any thoughts...

My preference would be 3,1,2 in that order. Normally I'm all for college as I think it is a better atmosphere and more similar to university than a school, however it sounds like the 2 schools would be better for her academically.

I would go for 1 or 2

You know her current school brings out the best in her.

But she might want to stay with her friends - that's important. But the idea of an (avoidable) 1 hour journey does not sound good. Is it 1 hour in optimum conditions, or could it be longer in practice? What's the fallback for getting there if the bus doesn't turn up? Are her friends definitely considering it, or just talking about it as an option?

Stay at her school. Most of my A-level classes were small, particularly for A2, and it was great. Would consider 3 but only if you think she's likely to be very punctual for the bus! Can't really see the benefit of 1, apart from staying with her friends.

Thank you - interesting that 'stay at school' is popular. My concern about school is that because it's so small, she won't have the same wider opportunities (e.g., both 2 and 3 run a medics academy programme).

Going to college is probably the default option for local kids - I'm pretty sure that's what her friends will end up doing, though I remember from my own distant schooldays that far more people ended up staying for sixth form than said they would early in Y11!

Commute for either 2 or 3 definitely not ideal - 2 would be a dedicated bus service, the hour is door to door from our house and she could travel in with her dad sometimes. 3 is a train journey - I'd be the alternative if the train didn't work (which is fine as I work very flexibly, but obviously not the dream!).

Just some random comments as dc had slightly similar choices (now at 6th form college):
-Busses in the morning are always late (up to half hour=late for school) or sometimes cancelled last minute. Dc doesn't mind the long bus drive and now leaves the house at 6.30am.
-College has links with lots of opportunites for eg those interested in med school, however most of these my dd can't access as they are meant for Widening Participation/not for those who didn't do GCSE at state schools.
-DC was used to small classes but doesn't find the bigger classes matter in terms of learning.
-DC did not find it difficult to make new friends.

I wouldn't choose an option with an hour commute each way unless there were real tangible benefits to doing so. And nothing in your post suggests there is.
So I'd stick to 1. Unless DD really hates it. It sounds like she is a high achiever and would likely do well in any of the settings so I'm not sure I'd worry so much about "the right thing academically".

How much will current school support or indeed have knowledge of helping and guiding her with a medical school application. My DD stayed on in 6th form. Very small classes, well supported pastorally but missed out on support for Uni applications. Her oxbridge application help was head of 6th form sitting down with her watching a YouTube video on the interview a week before. The big colleges has medical/dental/oxbridge programmes set up.
Socially it was bit isolating too but that might have been her.

Dedicated school coach service makes option 2sound much more do-able. Because she will still be able to hang out with her mates on it, or do homework.

Just make sure you book it asap (both years) because if they run out of seats but don't have enough takers for a second bus, you - or rather she - could be stuffed

Does she have a preference?

My concern would be that a sixth form with class sizes of 2 or 3 would not be financially viable. Schools are really struggling financially, and for all the new head of sixth wants to make a success of it, if the school is e.g. short of chemistry teachers etc, then do they let down the three students in the sixth form, or a class of 30 elsewhere? I'd be worried also about them doing things like having Y1 and Y2 all in one class, and that really doesn't work for sciences.

It's definitely also likely such a small sixth form has limited experience of support students into med school etc, which is a disadvantaged. Colleges will even sometimes pay for UCAT/ BMAT etc, or help facilitate them- whereas a small school sixth form just can't.

In terms of the college, it does seem like the default option, but if it is good and has a good track record then it's probably also the safe option.

I'd apply at this stage to both the school and the college- assuming they interview etc, I'd interview at both, with a view to deciding after this point. It's better to keep possible options open, I think, rather than deciding after results day actually she would like to be with her friends, and then the college maybe not having the right spaces available to offer her.

I think I possible recognise the school option ( a school local to where I used to teach had something similar, anyway)- the issue with the school is that they struggled to attract and keep teachers, which did lead to lack of consistency in teaching. I would also ask about their actual track record, in terms of student numbers applying to medicine and success rate. I do think this is an area where uni links can be important, and people who really know what they are doing with mock interviews and have links for work experience etc can really help.

2 hours a day commuting is exhausting when you're not used to it, let alone when you're getting used to an entirely new environment and a suddenly ramped-up workload and entirely different level of expectations. On top of that, it sounds like she already pushes herself hard to be the best she can be, in everything, all the time. She could well be heading for burnout if she's not careful, and 2 hours a day travelling might be what pushes it over into unmanageable territory.

Thank you for all your thoughts - some interesting replies here, and lost to think about.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl and @chocolatenutcase have really articulated my concerns about staying at school. I know her teachers would want to support her and would help her as much as they could, but such a small sixth form can't possibly have the same experience and resources. The school has a real problem (as I believe many do at the moment) with recruiting/retaining STEM teachers - rather unfairly, they plough a lot of their resources into Sixth Form (DS in KS3 hasn't had a permanent Science teacher for 18 months now!), but those resources are definitely limited.

Option 3 has an early application process, so I think she's pretty much decided to apply and the actual decision can come later.

I know what you mean about burnout @FurryDandelionSeekingMissile (I think the people who've responded on here have the coolest collection of usernames I've seen!). She definitely feels she's got more in the tank - the high school results come with relatively little effort (though I know this will change for her at some point in her academic life, because I was that kid at GCSE level too) - and she has a good balance at the moment of downtime, socialising and working. But it's definitely on my radar.

We are currently looking at 6 forms for my year 11. I am really pro the 6th form college experience - great middle ground between school & uni to teach independence, self management etc.

Definitely not 1

Sounds incredibly dull with very few social activities.
College isn’t just about academics

My experience is a school setting is a good one for A levels. Eldest ds went to college and it was not a great experience. They had too much down time, few rules and little communication with us as parents. They did not know him so did not know when to push, when to support and just let them get on with it. Ds now in year 11 will go into a school 6th form.

That's fair enough 3, you know her a lot better than I do Very glad to hear that it's something you're already keeping an unobtrusive eye on, and though I was urging awareness of the extra stress of a commute, it's very possible she'd not just cope but thrive with the extra challenges. It must be frustrating that both of the more promising-looking options involve that much travel, though. Makes socialising with schoolfriends more cumbersome, too.

Option 2

My DD had similar choices, but school was 40 min walk away, I used to drop her half way on my way to work, but they don’t always start in first period in 6th form. School is tiny, excellent science teachers and head of 6th form but its quite old fashioned, also its on the edge of town, nowhere to go in free periods/lunch and DD just felt that the overall cohort size was too small especially as they had all been together since y7, it was a bit stifling. Class sizes max about 7 (its a private school). Have heard from others that the small cosy nature of it does not prepare them well for the massive lifestyle change of going to uni.

Choice of colleges - local one (also 40 min walk) whose reputation has slipped a lot in the last few years, or much smaller one in neighbouring town with steady reputation also requiring a 40 min journey (but 25 mins walk, 15 mins train). Fallback for the latter journey is that I work in that town.

DD has opted for the latter and is very happy there, the classes are 8-15 or so, she likes the independence of catching the train and being in a bigger town, there is not much communication with parents yet (y12) but she is working hard, enjoying it and making new friends.

Option 2 will be a good experience to have before uni, as a stepping stone - I had a similar commute to a big college back in the day and I just used to read on the bus/chat the friends, it was fine.

I'm in favour of a change at sixth form, especially where the school/classes are so small. Two of my DC did it and they really blossomed (actually I also did it long ago!). They didn't go to college (no sixth form colleges round here, only FE colleges which I don't think are the best choice for A levels), but to another school with much better sixth form facilities and larger numbers overall, and better/more consistent results for the subjects they wanted to do. Class sizes were still small and I think most sixth forms keep class numbers reasonably low. Other DC stayed at school (different school to the first 2 DC) but it's still a fairly large sixth form, they have also blossomed with the increased independence but your DD school sounds like my older DCs one - academically it would have been ok, but two more years of school rather than an opportunity to grow.

Also I wouldn't worry about a commute at sixth form level

I must say that going to college instead of 6th form was one of the best decisions I ever made. Academically I might have done a bit better at school, who knows, I wasn’t an aspiring medic, but socially it was amazing and it grew my independence and general life skills massively. We had a blast on the bus on the way there and back. My closest friends are from those days.

I would absolutely go for one of the options offering medics academy if she has her heart set on that. Medicine is getting harder to get into (post pandemic and deferments and retakes during that time etc).

Also I know so many students this year predicted AAA in a levels who wanted to do medicine who got 2 A*s and a B in chemistry. So many got lower chemistry results than expected and predicted and so have had to defer again.

So for me the school with best chemistry teaching and medics academy would be the number 1 choice.

As an aside I'm also really pleased to hear a school in a deprived area has the facilities to encourage those in poverty to strive to achieve and provide those opportunity for them.

So I'd go for 3,2,1 in that order.

I'm sure you've probably considered this but does either option 2 or 3 have a quicker option of using a train with a bike?

My dd had exactly the same choices.

She went 1,3,2

I would have chosen 1,2,3

Not option 1. I did that back in the day and it was a poor preparation for my science degree, specifically practical side of it.

Agree with pp, the one with the medics support sounds the best bet.