When did all the secondary schools decide to stop teaching at 16 then...?

[poodlepusher]

I have been looking up local schools and none of the secondary schools seem to go beyond 16 / GCSE's.

Have I missed something? I thought that most schooling gave the opportunity to do A levels - is the fall off so high that a local college can deal with the remaining students?

I'm genuinely puzzled.

Most schools around here have a 6th form.

I teach 6th form in a school.

I think, a long time ago, in the olden days, before I started teaching, the Conservative govt moved majority of 6th forms into colleges.

Some schools hung on to it, if there wasn't a colege nearby.

Not 100% sure, but it was something like that

Only 2 had em round here when I was at school (well 3 if you divide up into boy AND girl grammar, but 2 on offer per sex)

well I feel very ignorant. I expect I spent many years with my head up my arse when it came to news about education and I've only managed to pull it out now that I have babies.

Thanks Fizzbuzz

The authority where I live is 11-16 but I teach 'next door' where it's 11-18 and I think that a properly run 6th form is great for a school.

Twas the Tories that got rid of them I went to an all girls school 11-18 and in my final year there we got boys and got rid of the 6th form - school is much the poorer for it!

Most of them, in around 1986 (or was it 83?), I think which was (roughly) whne Keith Joseph, Tory education secretary, decided all 6th form places had to be consolidated.

Very bad move. It has never really gone the other direction.

All schools round here have a 6th form.

None of our local high schools have 6th forms, except the one selective.

My secondary education stopped at 15 too, a good three months before I was 16.

In my area, the secondary schools go to 16, and then the sixth form colleges take over.

some LAs are 11-6 then sixth form college, others are 11-18, others are a mixture - there was a trend a while back for 11-16 then college, but it is going the other way now

I teach in an independent school, starlight, and our students do most of their GSCEs at age 15/16.

Who knows what the LA schools get up to?

Here there are lower, middle and upper schools so 4-9, 9-14 and 14-18

When I left comprehensive school in 1982, we didn't have a sixth form. One had to go to Sixth Form College for A levels etc.

I left in 82.

We had to go to the local 6th form or FE college.

(Or, more usually, walk into a job on the potbanks.)

My old secondary school has a sixth form (it's just built a whole new building to house them) as do most of the schools around here. There are two or three tertiary colleges around, in the borough and surrounding areas but which are a bus ride or two away.

I think that its a pity that our town does not have a sixth form college. It allows kids more choice of subject and facilites.

I know someone whose son is gifted and talented but goes to school in a poor area. Inspite of being only fifteen he already has GCSE A in Maths and Statistics and is good at music. He is predicted 11 A/A grade GCSE. He desperately wants to A-level Physics but his school does not offer A-level physics. The posh school that does offer A-level physics as refused him a place because he lives too far away.

Gifted kids from poor families are denied opportunites. If there was one sixth form college that everyone in the town went to then this boy would have the opportunity to do A-level physics.

A lot of sixteen year olds benefit from a more adult enviromnent. It gives a better preparation for university. I don't think school sixth forms give the students enough freedom.

I have to disagree ReallyTired. When I was 16 our town set up a 6th form college, ours was the last year at our school to have the option of staying in the sixth form. Some of my friends went to the college, others, including me, stayed at school.

I never ever regretted that, our sixth form was great and in no way did we feel like 'children' while those at sixth form college were 'adults'. We were treated like adults and allowed privileges and freedoms not given to the younger pupils.

My children will go on to sixth form at their school, it is a brilliant sixth form and offers a huge choice of subjects, a few less common ones in conjunction with the secondary school next door to it which also has it's own sixth form. The sixth formers I've known in the last few years have really thrived in that environment, both academically and as young adults and have progressed to university and adult life very easily.

I also think it's important to keep those 16-18 year-olds in school as role models for the younger pupils. Schools with sixth forms can also attract a different range of teachers, because many teachers want to teach up to A level but don't only want to teach sixth-formers. Teachers at my old school all had to make that choice when the sixth form college was set up, and it was very difficult for many of them.

As I said before that most schols around here have a 6th form but thee are also 3 6th form colleges. DD1 stayed at school to do A levels. DD2 18 is just finishing 6th form college which has turned out to be a much beter option for her then staying at school. DD3 16 is in year 11 and will be going to 6th form college in September which provides more options for er then school would.

poodle, you're leaning against an open door here.

In my city, only 5 of the 29 state secondaries have a sixth form.

This is because they had Blunkett's pinko wanker mob in charge for many years and they decided, in an act of chip-on-the-shoulder class-war, that opportunities for working-class kids would be made much more interesting if they were to prevent them all from getting A-Levels or being able to attend a grammar school.

The only schools which hung on to their sixth-forms were those in the affluent suburbs represented by a Tory MP (now Lib Dem).

The message this city council now sends out is that, if you happen to live in one of the "nice" areas and Daddy is a doctor or a lawyer with a BMW, then you may, by their good grace, have a decent education. If not - even if you are middle-class and want the best for your children - then you are stuffed. (And we have one of the very best secondaries in our area, it just doesn't have a sixth-form.)

Basically it sends the message that, if your postcode is not one of two or three selected ones, your kids are expected either a) to leave school and go and study at the local dive of an FE college, or b) to get two or three buses across town to a school which might just qualify them for something more intellectually stimulating than frying onions (provided they can cope with being sneered at because Daddy isn't a doctor or a lawyer with a BMW).

I'm not bitter.

Some areas have schools up to age 16 and then a Sixth Form college.

I teach a large sixth form, few children in out LEA go to college, unless the local school doesn't do the course they are interested in (mostly vocational courses that the local college specialises in).

My dh went to a sixth for college.

Your secondary school will be able to let you know where their kids move to.