What to do for year 12? (Subjects for one year before applying to college).

[SurroundedByFruitcakes]

We’ve been trying to figure this out for a months and we’ve a plan so he can do the course he wants (in 2024) but have no clue what to do for 2023/24 school year.

We are rural and actually live on a farm. Despite me trying to encourage something different so he didn’t feel he had to stay in farming, DS wants to do agriculture and one day take over the farm. (Which I’m actually secretly happy about).

The agricultural college offers a City&Guilds Level 3 Advanced Technical Diploma in Agriculture.
Takes 55 minutes door to door in the car.
It’s 2hour 35min on unreliable public transport (3 busses), so very likely one will be late or cancelled, and has to leave the house at 0515 to get there. Erm, no. Getting up early he will cope with, 5am get ups are a daily occurrence and have been for his whole life. 5 hours+ travelling a day and it’s not worth it.

So the plan is, do something, anything, for one year as he has to stay in education or training, get his driving test passed ASAP (which will be between April and August 2024) then he can drive himself to agricultural college to do the course he wants to do in 2024-2026. We will also qualify for the rural transport college bursary so that will help with him running a car.

Entry requirements for the agricultural course: 4 GCSEs at grade 4+ to include any English, Maths and 1 science. So basically, English, maths and combined science all at grade 4.

He’s on target to get all 4/5/6s in 8 GCSEs.
English language (5)
English literature (4)
Maths (5)
Combined Science (5-5/6-6)
Geography (6)
Food and Nutrition (6)
Business (6)

So he’s good for the college course but struggling with what to do for one year.
Open to any and all suggestions.

Apprenticeship on your farm or another one local to you? (They had a grandson doing it on The Archers)

Weekly board at agricultural college? I know a number offer this due to the travel issue you describe.

Mechanics at a closer college? Bound to be useful for farming surely?

Motorbike?

What college options are there that he can reasonably get to for the year until he has his car?

How long is the college bus plus getting to a pick up point?

It may only be 3 days per week fyi.

It’s only 3 days in college and 2 days on placement. The college have said the placement will be close to home (but not our farm). So it’s only 3 days of 50 miles each way and the other 2 would be 5-10 miles probably.

The agricultural college doesn’t have its own college bus. It would be public transport which is 3 busses and 2.5 hours each way.

We looked at motorbike actually.It was a firm no. Apart from he decided it scared him and he didn’t want to die (accidents and deaths on motorbikes here are sky high), when we worked out it would have to be limited to 45km/h (28mph roughly) it would still take him approx 1.5 hours to get there. He would have to travel alongside traffic doing 60 for 40+ miles (and they won’t be doing 60, more like 70 and more if they can get away with it, I can guarantee that). So it was just decided it’s not safe. He would rather wait a year and drive a car.

They aren’t offering weekly boarding unfortunately. The budget probably wouldn’t stretch anyways. Which is why I’m happy he will qualify for the highest level of rural transport college funding.

We have thought about him just being here on the farm for the year, but don’t really know how to call it training or an apprenticeship. Apprenticeships need to have an approved qualification apparently from what I’ve been reading which doesn’t get around the issue of the agricultural college. We could call it training, but I don’t know what all the rules are tbh. I need to get some proper advice on this.

Mechanics might be a good call. I’m going to go and have a look into that.

We can quite happily get him to the nearest general college, it’s a pain, but it’s only 10 miles away.

I don't think anyone will check tbh but you might have to stop claiming child benefit. Just have him work.on the farm.

Work on the farm as Boom said.

One year college courses in something like mechanics or animal science or something else vaguely related as Teen and Phos said.

Alternatively will the 6th form allow him to do just EPQ and core maths? Both are only one year and his EPQ could be agriculture project or essay. Core maths would be just be useful life skills like finances and tax which may come in handy if he wants to run the farm?

Might be a good call about EPQ and core maths.

If we don’t figure something out that might just try that @Boomboom22. I don’t know how it all works, but if it’s all linked to child benefit then I suppose that would make sense just to stop claiming it. He would probably be happiest working with the cows and doing general farm stuff everyday rather than doing something he’s not actually that interested in just to tick a box.

How about something like bricklaying, dry stone wall building, plumbing ? all useful skills to have on a farm ?

Slightly off the point, but how do you know he will pass his driving test in the timeframe you mentioned? Loads of people fail, even several times.

Are there farm working exchanges? Where he might go as an apprentice to a similar type of farm in say France, or a country you have friends / relatives / working connections? Maybe not for a whole year, but long enough to gain from the experience?

It's also almost impossible to even book a test slot at the moment

@Tellmethespoiler He can already drive and has been driving for a couple of years now.
Has driven the Land Rover and pickup (on private land and with permission so all perfectly legal).
He passed his tractor driving test a few weeks ago and now has a license to drive tractors legally on the road.
So confident he will pass the car driving test.

Ah, OK, that sounds very positive, then.

There's that WWOOF scheme? I'm sure it's harder post BREXIT but could be fun and educational.

wwoof.org.uk/en/

Failing that, you could look at some distance learning - OU used to have some 16+ stuff or e.g. Kings' Interhigh (assuming you have reasonable Internet). An EPQ's a good idea.

A personal finance qualification might be useful. There's an AS level course some sixth forms do in year 12. I think it's one of these:

www.libf.ac.uk/study/financial-education/qualifications

Having recently watched Clarkson's Farm, maybe a good quality first aid course?!

@Aixellency Didn’t think about that, but, there used to be when we were part of the EU but we’re not any more so they stopped.

There might be some international ones, I don’t know, I haven’t heard anything. Young farmers might know so I’ll get in touch with them.

Might just be a good idea for him go round all the local farms and spend a month on them all, he‘ll learn a lot from doing that as well as his usual stuff on our own farm.
I suppose that would all class as training then because he would be learning new things from them all.

@Phineyj I agree about the first aid. He’s has a lot of practice at that. I sent him on one of those St Johns Ambulance ones last year. It’s essential skills for farming! The amount of injuries is unbelievable.

I like the suggestion though, might see if there are any of the longer ones he could go on.

Glad to hear it!

I don't think you'd pick it anyway, but and EPQ+Core maths wouldn't count as 'full time' so he wouldn't get funding for it.

The worry about taking a 'year out' at 16 is he might find it hard to get back into college work afterwards. However if he is farming I suspect it's less likely.

Training has to be 'approved' for CB purposes.

As you would be so far away by public transport, is there any way the LA would provide taxi transport for free?

Hi OP, As others say, it is definitely talking to as many of your local contacts as you can to gather ideas and even possible opportunities. I'd add your livestock mart, local agents and NFU to the list. Others may have been in a similar position and asked those contacts for the same sort of advice.

If he does consider the local non-agric college for a year, could something along the lines of basic accounts/business management for small businesses or marketing/digital promotion for small businesses be useful? I am thinking ahead to a world where skills to run a diversified family business means a young farmer will need a good business head and digital marketing flair just as much as the core farming skills. I see he is getting good grades in his Business GCSE, so he is on solid ground there.

Hope that helps. Really frustrating about the lack of agric college transport; he and you have my sympathies and it is great you are both being proactive about trying to deal with all that.

Nothing useful to add but I just wanted to say this sounds interesting and fascinating. And so good that a young person still wants to go into agriculture as we need farmers to grow our food.

So much more interesting than the million which science / Oxbridge/Durham/Warwick threads!

None of the local schools have a farm, do they? I know they are rare, but they are a thing where I live and they have apprenticeships and jobs for willing young people.

Most agricultural colleges offer a residential bursary which is means tested and tiered to household income. If you live on a farm, your DS is very likely to qualify as the industry is keen to keep people. Is he willing to go even further away from home?

I know where we are we’ve had a huge problem with land based and rural colleges. They seem to be closing like they’re going out of fashion. I blame funding and lack of government foresight (and there’s some other things involved). But, I’ve been involved in a lot of campaigns to get some land based and rural education back into the area and it has been partially successful, but not as successful as we would have liked because large parts of the area still have no access to the needed education, but we keep trying!
I do know from that experience that at least one college who we managed to get to set up a local (ish) campus to us (albeit offering less choice of courses) and a training provider which set up after the closure of the last remaining college, are very interested in hearing off people who would like to partner with them and offer apprenticeships so the area does not loose the skills it needs. It might be worth getting in touch with the college you are interested in and asking whether they would be interested and able to help with setting up a 12 month apprenticeship. Your DS would still have to go to the college but this will be a lot less frequently, potentially only once a fortnight.

PM me if you want.

@Piggywaspushed wow, farm schools, I thought those had gone out of fashion 20 years ago! Nice to hear some have survived near to you. Wish we could have ours back.