As someone who has been responsible for creating and running two Post-16 educational provisions in my career, it was an interesting experience being a parent supporting my own children as they navigated the inevitable open evenings and glossy prospectuses in recent years.
What follows are some thoughts on what I learned when viewing schools and colleges as a parent rather than as a professional.
A Fresh Start
The opportunity to move on from a school to attend a Post-16 provision elsewhere is a chance to start afresh. There could be many reasons that a student actively wants to move away from the school they attended from the age of 11.
Sometimes the student has outgrown the school, which might have a very traditional behaviour policy and dress code. There might have been conflicts with particular students, or staff members that the student wants to move on from. The school may not offer subjects that are of interest. The entry requirements to the school’s sixth form might not be achievable for a particular student.
For these and many other reasons, students should think carefully about possible destinations and do the appropriate research well in advance of the application deadlines which generally fall from January onwards ahead of a September start.
FE Colleges vs Sixth Forms
One of the first considerations to make, is the type of provision. Further Education (FE) Colleges are attended by students of a broad range of ages, but the majority of students will be 16-19 years old. These provisions will have the widest range of courses on offer at levels 1-3 and beyond. There is often a vocational focus, ie courses that directly lead to a qualification that can be used to obtain work for example as an electrician, mechanic, hairdresser etc.
However, FE Colleges are also a popular choice for students wanting to study courses that will allow progression after the age of 18 to university or other higher education providers. These courses include Level 3 BTECs and A Levels.
FE Colleges are usually very large, with thousands of students in attendance, although many of these will be part time, and some will attend during the evening. The proportion of students studying Level 3 courses will be low relative to the overall number of students. The relationship between staff and students is usually quite relaxed, and the experience in general will be one of greater autonomy and freedom than students will be used to in school.
In contrast sixth forms are attached to a school and part of the school using the same staff and facilities. They tend to be focussed on A Levels for the most part. Many will also offer Level 3 BTEC courses and sometimes Level 2 BTEC courses. Students who did not achieve a grade 4 or above in GCSE Maths or English are given the opportunity to retake the qualification, but otherwise most sixth forms do not offer a full complement of GCSE choices as they focus on Level 3 provision over two years.
School sixth forms might have typically around 100-200 students in each year group. Students will be treated in a very similar way to how they were in lower years of the school, although this typically relaxes from Year 12 to Year 13.
One big difference to college is use of non teaching periods, in schools this non contact time is often supervised and students are expected to stay on the school site whereas in college students are generally trusted to come and go as they please and are responsible for managing their own time.
It is possible to attend a standalone sixth form that is not attached to a school. This was relatively common in some areas up until 2013 when due to the expectation that all students should remain in some form of education until the age of 18, schools across the country started to expand or develop their own sixth forms where previously they may not have had one. The standalone sixth forms without an attached school are called Sixth Form Colleges. They tend to offer a broader range of courses and subjects than school sixth forms as they will tend to have a large number of students (around a thousand across the two year groups).
Specialist Providers
A recent development has been the establishment of small, highly specialist colleges, focussed on one particular industry or sector. The most well known example is The Brit School, a school established for performing arts students that has had some success in launching the careers of popular musicians. Similar examples are LIPA in Liverpool and ELAM in East London. Other examples include Aston University 6th Form in Birmingham, the Fashion Retail Academy in Central London, and the National College for Digital Skills (Ada)* in Manchester and London. For students who already have a strong idea of the type of industry they want to work in, these are an intriguing new possibility.
One of the huge advantages of such providers is they have specialist equipment, facilities, industry links and staff expertise that school sixth forms cannot match. They are also smaller and more personal than the larger general FE colleges. Joiners are likely to find themselves amongst like minded people with similar career goals. There may be more of a focus on employability than in more traditional providers. A downside is that most students will have to travel some distance to attend such providers, and it’s not always clear to someone in Year 11 whether they will have sufficient motivation to attend such a provider away from current friendship groups and the comfort of their current routine.
Multiple Applications
With all the choices on offer, it can be difficult to settle on a single choice, particularly as students are working on the basis of GCSE grades that are being predicted at the time of application. Therefore it is important that students don’t apply to a single institution, but apply to many.
When making an application to study at a state secondary school when a child is in Year 6, parents will usually fill in a single application and list schools in order of preference. One school offer will be held at the end of the process. At Post-16, multiple individual applications should be completed and it’s therefore possible that multiple offers can be held.
Some providers, particularly the specialist ones, may select on the basis of an interview, audition or portfolio of work. Offer letters offering places are then sent out around April onwards for most providers. A student does not commit formally or financially to any individual offer at this point, as offers are usually conditional based on exam grades due in August. If offered an unconditional place, a student can still choose to accept the offer but to not attend on the first day.
All providers recruit on the basis that they will make more offers to students than will actually be taken up, knowing that students have multiple offers and could accept an offer but choose to study elsewhere when it comes to the first day of the academic year. This puts the power of choice into the hands of the student, and it makes sense to hold multiple offers taking into account grades that might be achieved as well as preferences for individual providers. So don’t reject an offer unless you are certain that the provider’s offer is not going to be taken up.
An exception to this is when schools band together into collegiates or consortiums. One of my local boroughs in London, Harrow, does this. The advantage to this system is that the schools have a collective timetable which means that it is possible for students to travel between schools for individual subjects. So if School A doesn’t offer French A Level for example, its students can attend School B for French and School A for their other A Levels. It also means that if a particular subject is full at School A, students can attend school B for that one subject.
A downside for students is that they cannot apply to multiple schools within their collegiate as the first school to offer the student a place will stop the application going to any other schools further down the list of preferences. However there is nothing stopping the student applying to a school or college outside the collegiate (for example in a neighbouring borough) and thus holding at least one alternative offer elsewhere.
Open Evenings
If you can, you should attend open evenings at the providers of most interest to you, including your own school. I’ve run many such evenings, which usually feature a talk from senior staff, a talk by students, and an opportunity to ask questions and view student work.
What I noticed from the other side as a parent were the following:
- Some providers have a very controlling approach that gives you very little feeling for what goes on day to day. The students and staff seem to be reading from a script which they will rarely diverge from.
- The most useful people to speak to are students, and you should speak to as many as you can, away from staff earshot if possible. You could do this with the students conducting tours, although they may have been hand selected to give favourable opinions. Probe them on the quality of teaching, the relationships between staff and students and the general culture of the place. Bear in mind that they might not know everything, and might not understand what you are asking. As one piece of data in your overall assessment of the provider, they are certainly useful.
- If you press staff on performance data and they are reluctant to discuss it, that might be a red flag. On the other hand, if they are honest about a dip in results in a particular year and can give some background on it, that’s certainly a positive in my book. You might ask them if they know the ALPS score for their subject. A score of 1 is exceptional, 2 is great, and 3 is above average. Anything between 4 and 5 is not an issue if it is a one off, but over a longer period of time indicates potential underperformance.
- Some school sixth forms go out of their way to welcome students from other schools, perhaps even putting on a separate open evening for such students. This really impressed me and gave me some confidence that joiners from elsewhere would be accepted as part of the school community.
- Glossy brochures and polished websites (usually designed by the same company for most of the providers you visit) often reveal very little. The important information you need is entry requirements, deadline dates, selection criteria, and recent results. It’s wonderful to hear about the Oxbridge and medical students, but where did the rest end up going?
- If you are a potential Oxbridge or medical student, what support is there with interviews, additional tests and so on? How are students selected for the Oxbridge/medical support programmes? Does everyone who wants to apply get the support or are a limited number selected? My friend’s son attended a school where he was not identified as a high performer and not put into the Oxbridge programme despite having an impressive set of exam results. My friend and I got him the support he needed ourselves and got him to apply. He graduated from Cambridge last year with distinction – this wouldn’t have happened if we left it to his school.
If you can’t attend an open evening, it may be that the provider will answer your questions by telephone or email, and it might be possible to talk to students that you know through family or friends. You might find useful information by looking over several years worth of data in the Post 16 performance tables if available.
Your Choice or Theirs?
At the age of 10, our children cannot reasonably be expected to make an informed decision on the quality of education on offer in the local area. They will have a preference, often based on where their friends from primary school want to go, and we should certainly take into account their views. However the final decision and the application process itself are in the hands of us parents. At transition to Post-16 however, the decision is in the hands of the student. We might have very strong views on where they should go and a sound basis for those views. Should we then impose our favoured choice on the person who is going to attend the provision if they choose differently?
Ideally it would be a discussion and all parties would come to the same conclusion and decision, however I am aware of families who directed their child to a particular provision despite it not being their preference. Equally I am aware of many students that I have taught who chose to attend a particular place despite their parents’ wishes.
Sometimes the students themselves are not sure until the last possible moment, highlighting the importance of choice by applying to multiple provisions and holding on to multiple offers. I recall one student in particular saying he left home in the morning on the first day of the academic year and literally did not know if he was going to turn left out of his door and go to one school or right to join another.
Summary
Contrasting my professional experience with my experience as a parent, my views have not changed substantially except in one aspect. I really underestimated the strong feelings that underscore student choice, especially the fear of change. Students who have a strong motivation to study a particular subject in a specialist setting can overcome this fear. The fear is also more easily overcome when friendship groups band together and join a particular provision collectively.
The shame is that students are missing out on an important development experience, that of stepping out of their comfort zone, learning a new way of doing things, and breaking out from existing social circles to meet new people with similar interests.
What happened with my own children? Both stayed put in their school sixth forms. I felt especially strongly about my younger son, who got excellent GCSE grades and could have taken his pick of providers, but chose to stay put, I suspect because most of his friends were staying, but also in part because of his fear of moving on. We decided as a family that he had the final say, despite our reservations, and due to the fact that although there was some risk involved in staying – the school has only one set of published exam results and has yet to send off its first A Level cohort – the risk is relatively low for our son, who generally works hard and has a parent who is a teacher. There was a moderate risk if we compelled him to attend our provider of choice that he would have been unhappy due to a lack of a friendship group or demotivated because he didn’t want to be there.
So the “right” choice might not necessarily be the one that your child makes. Ultimately the risks involved in the decision are the things to pay attention to. Attending a provision with inexperienced staff and a limited track record is a risk, attending an established provision with a good track record is less of a risk, but an unhappy child with few options for progression is the risk with the worst consequences.
The appropriate choice then will depend on your family’s circumstances, the personality of your youngster and the strength of their motivation.
*Disclosure: I worked at Ada from 2016-2018
