Year 10 now, when to apply for sixth form? Sept 2019?

[waterandlemonjuice]

Ds is in year 10 now so will start year 11 in Sept 2019 and sixth form in Sept 2020. When do we need to apply? Local schools websites aren't helpful, nor are local council. Thanks.

My dd is the same age. I’ve looked at some sixth form websites and the closing dates were in Jan I think. Open evenings are Oct/Nov.

Round here in Hants it is all 6th form colleges.
The earliest deadline I know of near us is Dec of y11. Our school publishes lists of open evenings and deadline dates to the pupils and helps with personal statements. All students have an interview with a member of the SLT to try to ensure they have thought about next steps.

Teacher on Manchester here. The 6th forms dates are January of year 11 but the colleges take applications until june/July time

You would need to look on the college websites

Surrey some open evenings colleges in July, and you can apply then. Others seem to be in September, including senior school own 6th form.

Most will expect applications roughly December-August. Many schools don't have a deadline at all for application. Autumn open evenings is when they are set up & expecting then yr11s.

Usually you’d go to open evenings anywhere between September and December, with applications done anytime up until end of Feb.
There isn’t a set timeline like with secondary applications so it will be individual to the Sixth Form College. The best bet would be to spend a little time over summer researching places you’d consider, seeing if they offer the right courses etc and find out when their open days or open evenings are and book them ASAP. The sooner you go and get the application done the better - once you hit December of Year 11 it gets hard to focus on anything other than GCSEs! Schools will start putting afterschool or weekend stuff around then too so free time starts to reduce.

Three (grammar) schools local to us:
School A: closing date 3.12
School B: closing date 31.12
School C: currently accepting applications from external candidates.

Open evenings were in the first 2 weeks of November. The two sixth form colleges each hold two or three open evenings, in autumn / spring. One local comprehensive school holds its sixth form open evening before the October half term, with a closing date of 4th December.

I would start looking at the beginning of the autumn term at the online calendars of all the schools you / your DS are considering.

You don't have to book for the school open evenings here; the colleges have pre-registration, but you can probably just turn up.

So as pp have said, there is no set system at this stage.

Thank you all, this is helpful! So I think I will spend some time looking over this summer and look at seeing places in September onwards and applying in January 2020, once we know which ones we want. Thank you for your help, much appreciated. :)

Our local open evenings start in June & July with more held in September. Applications closed from December onwards. You can hold unlimited offers.

Just to note that the London private schools, or presumably any school requiring your child to sit entrance exams, are earlier. Last year there were at least a handful with open days in September, and at least one had a closing date for applications of 8th October. But even that school didn't give out the relevant dates until July. If you are looking state, then our experience was open days in November and deadlines December, or January.