Schools
The joys of life without a sixth form Mark Whalley sees great advantages in ‘all change’ at 16 A couple of months ago I had a peculiar meeting with the parents of a Year 4 pupil. I had no real idea what the meeting was going to be about, though I suspected that it might be about class sizes or extra-curricular activities. However, I was surprised that when the meeting kicked off, it quickly transpired that the concern was their eight year-old son’s route to university and reading for an engineering degree at a ‘top’ university. What I wanted to say to them was that their son is only eight and for them to not worry about such issues, but what transpired was a far more important issue to me: they were thinking of removing their son at the end of Year 6 and sending him to an 11 to 18 school. The reason for this was not dissatisfaction at the quality of our education, but simply that we did not have a sixth form and therefore do not offer A levels. A little quick thinking ensued and I believe that I gave a persuasive argument that the three to 16 experience had so much in its favour that I am now 99% certain that the pupil will stay. Rookwood seniors.
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Mark Whalley. So what makes the three to 16 experience so valuable that a parent would not move their child to a large school with a sixth form? There are many factors that help children, such as a gentle primary to secondary transition and a proper degree of emotional and educational readiness for the abundance of choice in post-16 education. Until eight years ago I had only ever taught in secondary schools, and then I decided to move to a middle school. The reasons for the move were varied, but I must admit the jury was still out for me on whether middle schools had a place in the world of education. However what I saw surprised me: in my middle school there was no dip in performance in Year 7 of the kind that I had seen throughout my secondary career. We blamed the children, the parents, the feeder schools – but still performance dipped. In the middle school we didn’t see this. I believe that many children are not mature enough to transition effectively from a primary to secondary setting at the age of 11, and that a dip in performance is a response to the personal and educational challenges of a new, larger school. By contrast, it is one of the strengths of the three to 16 setting that children may move from the prep section to the senior section but still remain in the same school. Pupils – and their parents – benefit greatly from the familiar surroundings, systems and, above all, people when making this seamless transition to senior education. This simply removes the trauma of joining a new school for the secondary phase. Transition is always going to be a source of stress for young people, whether at the end of KS2 or when they leave school. The key thing is that transition should happen at a time when the stress is minimised and the value of transition is maximised. Again I believe that this is one of the most beneficial strengths of the three to 16 school, since a pupil who only ever experiences a three to 16 school has their first transition at 16. Some may feel that this is too late, but I would argue that the age of 16 is when a young person is most likely to be emotionally and socially robust enough to go on to a new institution. Some parents would like us to have a sixth form, but the simple truth is that it is not economically viable to establish
Autumn 2016
*CCR Vol53 no3 Autumn 2016.indd 12
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