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...

Thanks all, I really appreciate all the thoughts and personal experiences. Broadly, I'm on the side of a change at 6th form, though the long commutes from here are definitely a drawback. I'll support whatever decision DD makes though.

Completely agree with you @itsgettingweird, whether DD chooses it or not, I'm delighted that 3 exists. The secondary school in the town is excellent too - a little speck of good stuff in the general social mobility shambles we have today.

my only thoughts are about the time table.
so many go to college and only have one lesson per day for example
so much study time
would she be happy to stay in the library, would she be able to get home if she preferred easily?

My thoughts:

• 1 sounds a bit restrictive socially.
• If she wants to do medicine and doesn't have great support at school, you may have to be quite proactive yourself - but you'll get great advice on here if you join the Medicine 20?? group.
• A long commute will be hard if she has all the extra volunteering and other hoops needed for a medicine application. But she's clearly super organised, so no reason to think it won't be doable.
• Does 1 have good opportunities to mentor younger pupils? That might be useful experience that the others can't offer.
• IB is fab for an all rounder, and goes down very well with a lot of medicine depts. The work load is huge and shouldn't be underestimated, but it's a great course. My DD (now 4th year medic) is very happy she did it. Has made the dissertations at uni much less stressful for her than for her classmates.
• The medicine journey is long and stressful, so going where you feel comfortable, happy and supported is top priority.

Thank you again , lots of useful thoughts for us there.

I've started following the Medicine 2023 thread - it's quite a process, isn't it! I thought we'd be reasonably well placed to support her with it as DH is on the exec of our local NHS trust and we both went through the Oxford application process, but it's a whole new level of strategic planning and applying. It definitely makes me think that having access to an experienced medics academy would be a massive plus, there's a lot to learn.

Dd (first year uni) and ds (year 12) both changed schools for sixth form. They had different options we moved areas for ds’ sixth form. Just a few random thoughts…

Neither went to college in the end as dd was starting in 2020 and I heard some colleges were doing half online. I’ve subsequently got the impression that making a firm group of friends is harder at a big college, especially if there’s no central space/common room. They tend to make friends in their lessons but there’s no non-lesson social time as they often go home in trees. But lots still really enjoy it and the flexi time allows for part time work and driving lessons more easily.

They’re both glad they left school as they’ve made loads of new friends and kept their old ones too. They also have more of an appreciation of their old schools, having seen that no school is perfect.

Dd travelled an hour. She enjoyed the journey as she made friends to travel with. It did make getting a job harder though as she had less time. Also the majority of her new friends lived near the school so she had to travel to social stuff (by train but by Mum’s taxi if trains were down/she’d missed the last one) which was a bit of a pain.

2 or 3.

How does one find out if a 6th form has a medic academy please? I've not heard of this before and google doesn't tell me much. Sounds interesting, what services do they offer?

Hi again
Thanks for your further thoughts on this. I think the college experience is really quite different from sixth form at school and it's a case of trying to work out what will suit you and what you feel ready for.

In my (limited) experience, @UrbanChic, if somewhere has a medics academy it will be plastered all over their website. Types of stuff they offer includes help with arranging work experience, practice interviews, preparation for the medical school entrance tests etc.

Medics academy - I don’t know. Sounds a bit style over substance to me.

Yeah, I guess it might be. I think it's just a fancy name for a targeted support package for aspiring medical students. Option 3 in my original list, for example, has lots of established work experience contacts, a programme of visiting lecturers/visits, funding for summer schools and an interview/UCAT preparation programme, which sounds fairly substantial to me. But I'd guess what's on offer varies considerably, and some places may well provide that kind of support but just not package it as an academy.

DD moved to another school for 6th form, she has settled well, there’s a good cohort of new girls and she’s enjoying it. I like that she doesn’t hVe too much free time. She still has to do sport and other school activites, I particularly didn’t want her in a college where she had too much thumb twiddling time

Thanks for your thoughts @Xmasgrinchywinchy. It does seem that school sixth forms are more structured. I think at least one of my other kids will definitely benefit from more structure at that stage.

DD has a flurry of interviews and open days over the next few weeks (nicely timed to coincide with mocks!), so she should have a plan by the end of January.