We did it and were very pleased we did. DC (now adults) say it was the right decision.
We never planned to go down this route but eldest DC was in a school with no sixth form and so whatever happened he was going to undergo a change. The local sixth form college was the most chosen option by kids at his school, with other sixth form colleges that were further away and other schools with sixth forms as outliers that a few students from his school chose. The thing was we knew he was bright with loads of potential but also know that without structure and a hard working ethos he wouldn’t be bothered to work for his A levels. We chatted to the head of sixth form of a local private school at a sixth form options evening and thought it might work well. We kept all options open, he applied for a local sixth form college and a local school sixth form alongside taking scholarship exams for the private school. He was offered an academic scholarship which didn’t cover all the fees by any stretch, but made it doable for us for two years, knowing that if we did this for him we would also need funds for the youngest when her time came if she wanted to do the same. All things considered we decided as a family to go for it and he was looking forward to it.
A couple of advantages for us were that we already had friends with kids there in other year groups so we could share lifts in the evening; there was a school minibus that went from the top of our road to get home to school in the morning ( paid extra but worth it for the convenience) and the biggest plus was that one of his best friends was also going to that school so he wasn’t completely on his own at the start. He had a big wobble at October half term when all his friends who had gone to the sixth form college were talking about how casual it all was and how little work they were all doing, compared to the long days and hard work he was doing, but by Christmas he was loving it. He got really great exam results at the end of the two years and could have got into any of the universities he’d applied to with those grades. He also got to try out new experiences and meet with different people that he wouldn’t have been able to if he hadn’t gone there. When he went to uni he found self motivated study easy because of the training he’d received at the private school.
DD also went there - easier decision for her because having seen DS go there that was her preferred option from the start. She got a scholarship too. DD was already v motivated and hard working and had her sights set on a top uni. The private school gave her every support with that. She found the friendship
adjustment harder because none of her close school friends moved with her, so that was a big downside, however she did make friends and was happy. Again, the training and skills she had learnt at school set her up for uni life beautifully. She already knew how to work hard and organised her time well and she breezed through uni and did extremely well.
Both of them say they were pleased they did sixth form there because it set them up to get great A levels (the atmosphere was very much that everyone works hard and wants to do well) and trained them how to work hard independently but that they were glad they hadn’t done their whole schooling there (no chance we could have afforded it anyway!). They were pleased that their exposure for GCSEs etc had been in state school because they felt other students at their private school had a limited knowledge about life outside of the private bubble, and so feel they had the best of both worlds.
I will caveat all this though by saying that if a good sixth form had been available at their secondary school, I doubt we’d have ever even thought about the private option.