When to start visiting sixth forms?

[itwillbebetter]

My Son is year 10 at a small independant school with no sixth form so we need to look around, but is it too early now? Is the Autumn term of year 11 the usual time to start visiting?

Autumn of year 11 is usually when the sixth forms hold open days.

Around here, most of the 6th forms have their open days in November, so yes you would be looking around in the autumn term of y11.

All of the sixth form open days here happened over the course of about a fortnight in November. However, now would be a good time to start looking at options and results etc. Not all sixth forms offer the same academic options and the way that personal development is promoted varies enormously. I'm sure you could get prospectuses now to help you to draw up a shortlist.

If you are looking at private, then the summer term is a good time to visit, often the applications need to be in by October ish. We visited our first Sixth form college in July of year 10, most of the rest were autumn of year 11.

The 6th form colleges round here have open days in July and again in October.
Closing dates for applications range between December and February

so starting in the summer of year 10 is a good call

As PPs have said most have open days and application deadlines in Autumn year 11. However the one local to me has a June year 10 deadline, so do check!

No idea about private.
Here, all the state 6th forms happened within a couple of weeks of each other in November. Applications had to be in , in January.

Thanks all, will start compiling a short list!

Are you in London? If so the more academic schools (Westminster, SPS, SPGS, KCS, CLSB) seem to have open days in the summer term, early autumn application dates and exams/interviews in the autumn term. Other private schools like Latymer Upper who don't set exams will have later dates but still much earlier than state.

If you are looking at one of the bigger name schools, especially one likely to attract overseas students you will probably find more on Student Room.

Make a short list and get the prospectuses. Ask the admissions officers for guidance. I would start now, personally.

I would say if there are open days this term or next it is worth starting to go and have a look, that will give you a chance to rule out any definite no's and you will then be able to look at your shortlist more than once. We found it helpful to go a second time having seen other options as it helped us to really focus on what our priorities were and we also thought of more questions having seen how other schools do things.

I have a child in Y10, from her year planner it looks as if her school sixth form has post 16 taster days this year at the end of June / beginning of July. This makes sense as the sixth form staff will have time to do this when the Y13s have finished their exams.