sixth forms | FE Week

Attending to the problem

Exclusive data reveals student absenteeism has got worse across further education since the Covid lockdowns – but colleges are grasping the nettle and fighting back

Small school scandal deepens as academy trust found running sixth form with fewer than 20 pupils

A multi-academy trust might be running a new sixth form with fewer than 20 students, FE Week has learned, just days after the DfE reversed a decision to let it open another one over fears it wouldn’t be able to make up numbers. Loxford Trust has refused to reveal exactly how many students attend the […]

Council wants small-school sixth forms to merge or close

Brighton and Hove council wants to merge or close its small-school sixth forms, it has announced following a review of local post-16 education. Its report calls for school and academy governing bodies to “consider the future financial viability of their sixth form provision” and develop a plan to increase numbers or merge with another school. […]

Bigger is better for sixth forms

Size matters, at least when it comes to sixth forms – as FE Week discovered when we investigated the issues surrounding smaller providers. Mick Fletcher, an FE policy expert and the founder of Policy Consortium, insisted that the government decision to set the minimum number of students at 200 was “well-founded”. Smaller sixth forms “don’t […]