Disadvantages In Secondaries That Only Go Up To GCSE? Ie no 6th form?

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I am in London with lots of secondary choices. There are a few schools which have excellent GCSE results but are undersubscribed and the only reason I can see vs the oversubscribed schools is that the undersubscribed schools (with better GCSE results) only go up to GCSE, there is no 6th form.

There are plenty of 6th form colleges in London. So what am I missing? Would I be crazy to consider a school that only goes up to GCSE?

No it’s absolutely fine. Most (not all) 16 year olds thrive from the change of environment

Pretty much all the local schools to me only go up to GCSEs - literally the only one that doesn't is a Catholic school.

I think there are advantages and disadvantages. A friend who teaches A level at the local private school said you don't get the best teachers as no-one is teaching A-level, but the local schools seem to do pretty well - all rated Good or Outstanding.

There are quite different vibes between school 6th form and colleges so it kind of depends what your child would prefer. My Y9 goes to a grammar school outside the borough which does have a 6th form, and she is quite keen to stay on at present. She prefers structure to change, but may still end up leaving as the grammar school only does very traditional A level subjects. Y7 is at a local girls school and will leave for 6th form, but I like the fact she will be in a mixed environment then. I also think 6th form colleges tend to prepare them better for independent learning at uni, and have a far wider choice of subjects.

Here in Hants almost zero schools have 6th forms. the system has its pros and cons but seems to work well enough. The main thing I like is everyone has to make a positive choice for where to go post GCSEs, no staying at school by default even when it is a less good option.

However in a system where some have 6th forms and some don't I can see why those without are less popular. People will want the easy option of staying for A levels to be available to them when choosing a school at age 10.

I guess then also it depends how easy it is to find an A level place elsewhere if you don't have your own school as an easy option, if that is what the child wants to do.

Might be worth noting whether they are linked to sixth form colleges. Round here if you go to a school with no 6th form, you get higher precedence for places at the closest colleges. It's usually academic because colleges seem to have very elastic capacity, but you could look into it if you're worried.

I personally benefited from going to an independent 6th form. I had outgrown school and didn't have good friends in my cohort. When I got to uni I felt the benefit as I'd already had to make friends and adjust to a new setting two years previously, when many of my peers had to learn to adapt to living independently and a non-school environment all at once. I'm not saying there aren't advantages on the other side but for me it was definitely a benefit to start afresh for a levels.

What do you mean excellent GCSE results? Like 80 percent gets 5+ at English and Maths and 50% gets 7+ ?

Many schools that also have excellent six forms do not provide a guarantee that they take their secondary students to the six forms. You have to pass the GCSE in a glowing way to be accepted.

It used to be the perceived wisdom ( don’t know whether it still is) that a school benefited fro m having a sixth form, but students benefit from going to sixth form college.

As a pp said, the difference is that 11-16 schools are staffed by teachers who have no interest in teaching A Level. As a parent you could argue that doesn't matter, because they only need to teach GCSE. But if you are a Headteacher trying to recruit strong subject leaders, with good academic credentials it can be a disadvantage.

We had to make this choice and we went with a secondary that had a 6th form. The way I saw it was that if dd wants to go to college she still has the option to apply but if we'd gone the other way and she wanted to go to a school 6th form they only have a tiny handful (5 in our school's case) of places for new kids.

There is some research that shows college leads to better university results which I read when we were trying to make a decision.

In my area schools mainly have 6th forms - colleges seem to cater for the vocational route. The one college that does a wide selection of a levels is some journey away.

Although people from our area go there and it has a good reputation we decided against it.

This- not a guarantee, but a possibility.

People saying that teachers who don’t want to teach A level are somehow poorer teachers are talking absolute rubbish.

I work in an 11-16 school (nearly all are round here) and there are some amazing teachers. I’ve worked in 11-18 schools with some absolutely dire teachers.

OP the presence of a 6th form usually has little to no effect on what happens at 11-16. Choose the school you like. Many children in schools with 6th forms choose to move elsewhere anyway.

Most of the schools in our area don't have 6th forms (catholic one is the exception) however there is an excellent 6th form college and other college options.
We are currently looking at 6th forms for our yr11 son and there is a certain amount of relationships between the schools & post 16 options so although they aren't the same organisations the transition should be smooth enough.
The benefit of the 6th form college option seems to be because it's a larger organisation there is more choice of subjects and combinations that can be accommodated. This works well for us because at GCSE level the timetabling left our son with not quite the choice of subjects he wanted.
The a-level results from our main local 6th form college are very good so it's likely he will go there.

My Dd is in an 11-16 school. She is in Year 9 so half was through. It does a bit feel like we have only just recovered from the stress of applying for secondary for her (and have to do the same this year with her brother) and in just 2 years we’ll have to start the whole palaver again.

All things being equal we would have chosen a school with a sixth form but (of the ones she could get into) she would have had to travel further to go to a less good school that less of her friends were going to. That wasn’t equal!

DD is at an 11-16 school, and we looked at the neighbouring college at the same time. The thing that struck me was how much choice there was at 16-18 at the college... massive range of A levels and vocational subjects. More pupils in each year means less struggle to fill the minority subjects.

It really depends on where they can go at the end of Yr11.

Aside from the fee paying selective school, not a single secondary school in the entire local authority has a 6th form here. Not one. In fact, there are few state schools with 6th forms in neighbouring LAs.

Despite this, many, many DCs manage to get good results, go on to further education and beyond.

I’m in Hampshire with its 11-16 schools. And I’ve worked in neighbouring LEAs with sixth forms. With sixth form, you always get movement, schools not being able to offer right combination of subjects etc. or simply at 16 they want a change. It is much harder to change schools pre-GCSE, so get that right and you can look at options post 16 when you get there. Preteens and teenagers change quite a bit as well, what suits one at 11 may not suit them at 16.

As for the teacher argument, I taught A-Level for years and enjoyed it, it was around 20% on my timetable, but took up 80% of my time outside the classroom and stress. I really loved teaching KS3 and 4 and decided to move schools and spend more time teaching the age range I enjoyed, the work/life balance was better. I wasn’t the only one doing that!

I imagine it all very much depends on the area. Around here virtually all schools do have sixth forms, mixture of grammar and high schools. Only a few don't, they tend to be the less popular schools. There is however movement between schools and to the college.

I would though choose for the child you have now, what will suit them, hopefully they will then thrive and be able to go anywhere for sixth form/ college depending on what they are interested in at the time.

Schools with sixth forms (in areas where schools do actually have sixth forms) are likely to be able to recruit better, more highly-qualified teachers, although obviously that doesn't mean that no great teachers work at 11-16 schools.

I wholeheartedly recommended a move for 6th form anyway (unless they love their school and it does have a good 6th form). Dd moved and it broadened her horizons no end. Many of her new college friends have come from schools without 6th forms but some of these schools seem to have a feeder agreement with local colleges.

A teacher who works in a 6th form is not more highly qualified. Perhaps they went to a more prestigious uni or are more likely to have a masters but that does not make someone a better qualified, or quality, teacher.

My school closed the 6th form a few years ago, and honestly it was the best thing we've ever done. Staff have had more time and energy to focus on Y7-11, the number and range of extra curricular clubs has increased massively, results have improved. The 6th form area is now computer rooms and a y11 pastoral hub where the careers advisor is based with loads of info on local colleges and apprenticeships etc. Only one teacher left to teach A Level but imo (I'm a TA and see lots of different classes) it wasn't a great loss. We haven't struggled to recruit since.

My DS has just done GCSEs at my school and is thriving at college. It's great for him to have independence prior to going away to university, especially as our school is fairly rural and not massive.

There's advantages and disadvantages to sixth form colleges. Tbf I don't think ours is particularly good, but it has an excellent reputation so people do want to go there. I hear a lot of dissatisfaction from parents and students though, on very similar things.

The advantage is they can focus on 16-18 qualifications , the teachers are only teaching them so can really get to know their stuff, and there's normally more options too. They may have enough to do things like set A-levels maths which can be helpful for some students too.
They treat their students more as students rather than children. It really helps get independence ready for work/university.

Disadvantage ime is they're not set up for the individual child. They've not got the mechanism in place for the child who is struggling either academically or pastorally. The one dc went to took a lot of children from specific schools. But if you were a shy child who didn't come from one of those schools, finding friends was really hard.
Dd's group all went from the same school and stuck together except for one girl joining them. They were quite happy to have others join, but almost no one mixed from the different schools. Another girl I knew (not in dd's year otherwise she'd have happily stayed with her) was one of only five from her school, none doing the same subjects, and described it as two years of no one talking to her. When her parents asked for help, they were told "they're adults now, they have to get on with it".
And the "adults now" was a lot of the attitude. We had to insist on having a parents' evening once in two years. They only saw those who were struggling generally. And the teachers we saw were clearly put out with us that we'd said we wanted an appointment-there were 3 parents' evenings over the year and we'd only asked for the final one. I don't think that's unreasonable!

As pp have said there are advantages and disadvantages to sixth forms and colleges. I will declare now that I work in a college so slightly biased.

Parents tend to favour their children staying on at school for may reasons which I understand being a parent myself. However, colleges have many advantages over schools - two main ones in my opinion - staff are usually subject specialist - this is not always the case in schools. I have know many colleagues who have moved to schools (pay is better for teachers) who have been made to teach subjects that are not their specialist areas - for example a psychology teacher being made to teach physics in school (not great as this colleague of mine didn't even have A level physics!). The second biggest advantage is it helps prepare young people much more for university or work - they have to learn to organise their own time unlike school - university is just like college but bigger in my opinion.

So in answer to your question - no you are not crazy and good luck with your decisions.

No school sixth forms here at all (except the private schools) and it doesn’t seem to affect results. The college is very good and being so big (1500 students) can offer a much wider variety of subjects than a school sixth form could. It allows schools to focus on younger kids and GCSEs without having to balance their needs against those of near-adults.