SW London: how hard are 6th form admissions? Would you avoid a secondary without 6th form?

[PForParent]

Not sure if a London-only forum might be more appropriate for this question.
One of the state secondary schools we are considering is Hurlingham Academy in Fulham.
It does not have a 6th form on site; it basically sends students to another school of the same trust, but that would be 45 - 60 minutes away by public transport.

We are trying to look into 6th form admissions, to get a sense for how hard or not it is to be admitted to a 6th form at another school, but we aren't finding much information.

• Do some schools use distance as one of the admission criteria for 6th form? Graveney doesn't, but for other schools (Chestnut) we cannot find the criteria online
• Are any statistics on applications and admissions published anywhere? They are published for Y7 admissions, but I haven't seen anything for 6th form admissions. I guess we must ask the schools directly?

I think it can be harder.

KFS for example have 200 places in 6th form and ring-fence 160 of those for their existing pupils (450 in each of Y7-11). 40 places are available for external applicants. They are allocated based on GCSE scores with the minimum requirement being 6 x 7-9 including English and Maths, and in case of over subscription they add up the GCSE scores and rank applicants.

I don't know if that is overall oversubscription or subject dependent - ie if you wanted to do Film Studies, Music and Art would you need to have the same score as someone wanting Maths, Physics and History as I assume some subjects are more popular than others.

You do need to factor in what your own child is likely to do. I assumed back in Y5 that mine would be following a traditional path of A levels - turns out that doesn't fit with her plans at all! So I would pick the school that is right for the next step and not worry too much about 6th form.

Pick the school that is right for now, and worry about next steps later. You've always got the option of specialised sixth form colleges (William Morris Sixth Form for example) and you've then not got to worry about existing pupils having allocated spaces etc.

@xmasdealhunter What do you mean by specialised? There are 6th form schools which specialise in certain subjects (like King's Math School in Vauxhall, or the Imperial College London Maths school in Barnet), but being admitted there is no walk in the park.

Basically our reservation is that there is another school which we like less but which has a 6th form, so we are unsure which we should rank higher in our options.

Taking between 45 - 60 minutes by bus (depending on traffic) to go to the 6th form of the other school of the same trust risks being too much of a nightmare

At 17 that's no distance to travel at all in London and the same journey that most kids will be doing from Y7.

My DD has done 90 minutes each way the whole of secondary with no issues.

Sorry, by specialised I meant purely a sixth form, rather than a sixth form attached to a school. So a college set up, almost.

I wouldn't worry about 6th form until later tbh.

Where we live out in Surrey, very few of the schools have sixth forms unless they are private or catholic. Everyone travels out to larger sixth form colleges - for us the choices were 45 mins walk, or 50mins commuting journey (eg 25 mins to train, 20 mins train, 20 mins walk)

It seemed unthinkable when we were looking round the secondary schools and kids were just 10/11 years old but he does the 45 mins walk twice daily and doesn’t bat an eyelid. Friends do the commute train ones too. Much easier at this age.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow It's about time more than distance - there are quite a few locations which are farther away but better connected.

I get it that there are teenagers who spend even more time commuting to school, but, if we can find a solution which doesn't take up to 2 hours of our child's time every day, it would be better.

It's like any commuting: there will always be people who commute more than you, but this doesn't mean it's not legitimate to have reservations about long commutes

I did a 45min commute in London for secondary, pretty standard & I know dc who travel further for Graveny 6th form.

Plus a lot can change in 5 yrs

Fair enough, but I wouldn't limit my child's options based on a standard commute time.

For a while, when I was a kid I had a very long commute to school.
I was very relieved when that changed.

Yes, it's doable, and, yes, there will always be someone with a longer/worse commute, but it was very tiring, stole a lot of time from my day, and was also very limiting in terms of social interactions because it was harder to meet the other kids outside of school.

The reliability of the commute is also a big factor. This commute would be by bus and I know from first hand experience how unreliable the bus service on that route can be

Did you do it in London though? It really is quite normal to travel. But if you are dead against it then choose another secondary.

The thread got derailed. The question was not whether it is normal for a 17-year old to commute 50-60 minutes each way to school, but what the admission criteria for 6th form are, if distance is ever a criterion, and if the 6th form admission results are published anywhere.

Pick the school that's best for the child you have now. It is madness to pick a school you like less because it has a sixth form.

Your child can apply to as many sixth forms as you like, and can hold multiple offers right up until they get their GCSE results. That is completely standard. Assuming they have the grades, they will probably have several offers to pick from and there's still movement after that.

The 160/40 split referred to above is a minimum of 40 places for external applicants. It is very common that schools offer more external places once they know how many of their own students want to move up - not all will.

You don't know what your own child will want to do/where they want to go by the time they are at that stage.

@PForParent look at each schools website - they should have admission policies for 6th form. Most of the ones I know tend to prioritise GCSE results first.

Graveney is very popular & I know dc at the 6th form who live in Croydon.

@PForParent , in a sixth form college they have @ 12 lessons a week, depending on the timetable they may not have to go in every day. Don't worry about the 6th form now.

Does this also mean that sometimes lessons don't start at 8.30 but later?

Interestingly, King's Math School, a 6th form in London focused on maths and physics and linked to King's College, states on its website that

https://www.kingsmathsschool.com/school-life/extended-curriculum

Teenagers need a lot of sleep, so King’s College London Mathematics School will start its day later than traditional schools. School starts at 09:10 and there are six 50 minute lessons each day, which will end at 16:00 with the option of staying later to discuss problems with your peers, engage in independent study, or speak to your teachers.

Nice. Probably also accounting for the likelihood that as it’s quite specialist, people might be travelling a bit further.

My child’s college depends on timetable - he starts at 8.45 3 days a week at 10am 2 days/ week. He finishes at 12 on a Weds and can come home early. Depends how the timetable works - he doesn’t have to get in for registration like at school - they can leave the campus between lessons.

@PForParent , yes it depends, you may not have to go into lunchtime etc.
Kings maths school is not a good benchmark for all SW London 6th forms!

A lot can change in 5 years. 6th forms attached to school usually follow the standard school day with only some flexibility on early finishes or being able to go out for lunch.

Criteria is more based on grades than commute or catchment area and A good reference from current school.

You have next to Hurlingham but on the other side of the river Ark Bolingbrook, Saint Bosco College or on the same side Chelsea Academy.

You would need to consider the availability of the subjects in a 6th form and if all of them can be done based on the timetable, the stability of 6th form staffing as some schools struggle with staffing of some A level subjects

Have you tried looking on the gov website to see which 6th forms are close to you and see how that looks in terms of a commute?

@PForParent it is compulsory for schools to publish their sixth form admissions policies, so keep looking for them online. Sometimes they are in the same document as the year 7 policy, sometimes separate.

School sixth forms have to prioritise their own students who meet the minimum academic criteria, so externals are applying for surplus places. Distance is usually a factor. It will also depend on spaces on the courses your child wants to study - more popular subjects will fill up with children who live closer than less popular subjects.

You won't know for sure if your child has a place until results are published in August, so you need to apply for backup options.

Sixth form colleges are usually a good alternative option to a school sixth form e.g. How close are you to Esher College? It prioritises some named local schools that don't have sixth forms - they are listed by name in their policy. Also, their final category is random allocation, not distance.

@okday I wasn't familiar with Esher College - thanks for flagging. It is farther away but, being so close to a train station, it would actually be a shorter and more reliable commute than going by bus to the 6th form of the other school of the same trust.

As well as Chelsea Academy near Hurlingham you also have the single sex schools like Lady Margaret and Fulham Boys. There's lots of movement around sixth forms.