Sixth form unnecessarily restrictive and strict

[Libre2]

DS has stayed at his comp where he got really good GCSE results (all 8s and 1 9) and had a very good friendship group.

The school was great and provided fantastic support and he got on well with staff. He has moved into the sixth form there and it seems to have gone a bit crazy. They have brought in serious rules and regulations - they have to sit in silence in free periods, with no headphones, they are not allowed to communicate with friends, they must be studying. One of DS's friends has four frees in a row and has to sit in silence for 4 hours. His parents questioned this and was told "he'll be fine".

They are giving out behaviour points for minor infringements and basically still treating them like children. DS is completely fed up with this - he has engaged brilliantly and done a lot of reading around his subjects and completed all tasks, but wants more freedom.

He is thinking of swapping schools in the city - sadly we don't have a sixth form college - he is worried about being lonely and missing friends, but doesn't really engage with them anyway as they are all maths/science and he is arts. Has anyone else encountered this or moved in the first half term?

Doesn't matter. They now need to find additional hours of active, supervised study in order to be eligible for the full time student rate. The tolerances have been reduced (supposed to be grateful they weren't removed altogether as was planned) and if there is a need for GCSE maths or English, that's another 100 hours each (but generously, if you can't find 200 for a double resit, as long as one is timetabled, they might let you get away with as much time spent on timetabled, supervised
lessons as possible).

Sounds awful. They need to learn to be independent and manage their time, otherwise they may as well just be in lessons. There are times for quiet study, times for collaborative study and times to have a break too. My son's sixth form have different areas/rooms in sixth form for this exactly, a quiet space for individual study, a room with grouped tables for working on things together and the common room for taking a break/socialising. It works really well and most get the hang of managing their time pretty quickly. Treating 16-18 year olds like children rarely works and they are doing them no favours for the future. Those that do not get this and do not get work done get put on intervention timetables and they then are required to go to supervised classrooms in 'free' periods to get work done