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?

No single sex for us, but thanks for flagging

@PForParent you can find the Chestnut Grove admissions policy on its policy page here: https://www.chestnutgrove.org.uk/index.php?page=academy-policies. It will open in Sharepoint.

@okday thank you, but that link (remove the dot at the end) is the admission policy for Y7 only.

The page on 6th form admissions https://www.chestnutgrove.org.uk/index.php?page=sixth-form-admissions-2
Doesn't actually explain what the admission criteria are!
There is a link, course guide, at the bottom, where they say they require high grades, but don't say, for example, if distance is a criterion or not.

In general the impression is that most schools tend to prioritise their existing students, so it seems to me that, to be admitted to a sixth form as an external student, you're likely to need even higher grades than the internal ones. Is this a fair summary? Not just wrt Chestnut but in general

If they don't publish a separate policy then the same policy will apply, but it will be an in-year transfer. That would be unusual for sixth form as they normally want to publish minimum academic criteria.

Don’t forget the sixth form colleges - Richmond, Kingston, Esher, Nescot, Strodes,

Yes - I would say that for schools without a sixth form, the default is likely to be that the kids go to a sixth form college rather than to a school sixth form. That’s what the colleges are for. They’re hugely impressive places, not second place choices for kids without a “proper” sixth form.

One good avenue would be to ask the no-sixth-form school where their leavers tend to go after GCSEs?

The default in this case is to go to the 6th form of the "sister" school, ie of the secondary school of the same trust, in Clapham.
It's not that far but the commute sucks because it's on a very unreliable bus route. One day it can take you 40 minutes and the next day it can take you 60.

I know that many students endure longer commutes but the question was on admission criteria for 6th forms, not on what is an acceptable commute.

But that won't stop you applying for sixth form colleges if you have any nearer to you. Their admissions requirements are either non selective or based on a grade point average of GCSE marks, it will depend on the college.

We found that admissions to sixth form has a totally different feel to reception year / Y7 school admissions. And different also to universities. It felt a lot more open and possible, and easy to choose. My son applied to the three main different sixth form colleges in a 2-15 mile radius from our house, and one (very selective) local school sixth form. As long as you met the minimum grade criteria for the subjects, admission was basically a given. He was able to hold several offers at the colleges until pretty much the week before starting. There’s always masses of movement after gcse results. I didn’t hear of anyone failing to find a place, or having to go with a college they didn’t like because there was no space. It was a bit weird actually after the stress of high school applications. Even the very selective impossible to get into local school was v easy to get into the sixth form if you met the grades.

This isn’t specifically helpful for your area, and we did much less school sixth form application than you are thinking of, but wanted to share our experiences (Surrey, Woking Guildford area).

Edited to add specifically on distance - the super selective local school he had a sixth form offer for - you basically have to live in sight of the school gates to get in at y7. For sixth form, they do have distance as a criteria but we were well well within the typically accepted range, to the point of being basically guaranteed, and we are about 5 miles away. They told us the typical distances at the sixth form open day, but it wasn’t published on their website as it’s more of a “typically students living in x y and z are fine” type thing. They did say in their info that distance was a criteria.

@Talipesmum that's interesting and very useful, thanks!
Is this because, even for internal candidates, the requirements are high, so you cannot do A level maths unless you have aced your maths GCSE?

But then is it true or false that, for the same grades, it is easier to be accepted if you are an internal candidate? Or is this too much of a how long is a piece of string type of questions?

I really don’t know I’m afraid! Didn’t quite understand it myself! I suspect it’s partly because some students want to go somewhere else for sixth form, broader choice of subjects etc.

I can imagine it might be quite hard to find all this out just on their websites - we got a lot of information from the sixth form open evenings and from talking to people who had been through the process. I think you might need to see if you can speak with someone in admissions at each of the places you might be interested in. And I imagine it does vary quite a lot between schools.

My DH and I were very weirded out by the idea of the sixth form colleges as we both were at schools that went through to sixth form as normal. But I’m completely won over by the idea now. Best to look at the whole picture and not just the schools one. At the very least, so you can understand back up options.

@PForParent internal students are already at the school, so are entitled to a place so long as they meet the minimum grade criteria.

Sixth forms all have their own criteria. You can find their policies on their websites. Distsnce does often figure. At many local schools entrance to the sixth form is not automatic - depends on grades. So they aren’t really through schools.

Yes, that was the spirit of my question.
Does it mean that, if the minimum requirement is a GCSE grade of, say, 7 for internal applicants, it practically means 8 for external ones?

No, it means 7 for both. They are not allowed to have different academic criteria for internals and externals. However, the external applicant will have some additional non-academic criteria, e.g. distance.

School sixth forms have to follow the national schools admissions code, which you can find online.

Sixth form colleges don't have to follow the code.

That would depend on whether the surplus places were allocated on grade or on distance. I think they’d want the same min grade criteria for internal and external?
so for the one near us it goes:
First meet the minimum grade requirements
then:
looked after children
previously at the school in y11
Siblings
Sport aptitude (up to 10% of places)
Radial distance from school

so a nearby student with grade 7 would beat a far away student with grade 9.

Yes, DD's school has a lower bar for internal candidates than external. However this information is not on the website. You would need to ask the schools individually about their policy.

This isn't correct, they don't have to be the same.

They could ask internal candidates for (for example) 6 x 6-9 grades and external for 6 x 7-9 grades as minimum requirements.

They are in breach of the Admissions Code if they have higher academic requirements for external than internal candidates.

@CarrotParrot would it be a breach if a sixth form has, for example, 100 places for internal candidates and 20 for external ones, in both cases with a minimum GCSE grade of 7?
Something like this could easily result in the minimum requirements being theoretically the same, but then, if the ratio of applicants to places is much higher for external applicants, it is easy to end up in a situation where the min grade is actually higher for external applicants.

This wouldn't be a breach of the admission code, would it?

I assume that is how it is done.

As if it is a popular school, oversubscription criteria would kick in for those 20 places at which point minimum requirements go out the window and it's based on score rankings.

You're wrong. If it's a state school sixth form they have to have the same academic criteria for internals and externals. If they don't, it's a very clear breach of the national admissions code, so would be wide open to appeals.

Some grammar schools, e.g. Tiffin have a policy which ranks the external applicants by grade so the impact is that externals have additional academic criteria. I suspect that probably is a breach of clause 2.6 but, until someone refers it to the adjudicator, the policy stands.

Tiffin (the boys school, with a mixed sixth form) has another admissions code breach in their 2025 policy - it makes offers based on subjective predicted grades rather than objective actual grades. They've fixed this in their 2026 policy.