Talk:Sixth form

untitled

Why is the reference to Honk Kong and Malaysia, included under the heading England? Maltesedog 09:27, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge

This should be merged with sixth form college ; otherwise this seems a bit redundant. --Catchthedream 21:56, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the merge should actually go the other way; sixth forms exist around the world, but sixth form college only mentions the UK. smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 08:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Miscount

The article states that in "Year One" children have their fifth birthday. Then the upper and lower sixth forms, when children have their 17th and 18th birthdays would be Yrs 13 and 14, not 12 and 13 as stated. Basic numeracy suggests something in the article must be wrong!

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Not sure if it's been fixed since you read it; but the Year 1 article now says that year one children start the year "aged 5", rather than have their 5th birthday; so, it's their 6th birthday they have in year 1. Emmadw (talk) 18:07, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

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The year in which children are aged 5 is actually called "Reception" and then there are 13 more years so lower sixth is year 12 and upper sixth is year 13 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.165.243.77 (talk) 18:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

New Zealand

New Zealand has Sixth For at well. There is now a different naming system. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 01:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

For some unknown reason, some oaf deleted the following, saying wtf, I can't complain if my country didn't make the list. My point was that the "list" here is for some reason devoted to British and Commonwealth countries. Bearing that in mind, Australia should be on that list, especially if New Zealand is. Else, it becomes very puzzling as to why the tiny nations dealt with here are worthy of attention, while much larger ones have been excluded. I repost my concern below.

Forget Trannydad and Tobasco, and Hong Kong et al. Where the bloody hell is Australia in this lot? If New Zealand makes the list, why doesn't a Commonwealth Country of over 20 million people, and with a different variation on secondary education for each state? Incidentally, I live in New South Wales, Australia, and here the last year of high school is Year 12 (it begins in Year 7). Now I read here that there are Years 13 and even 14 all over the place. Does this mean that overseas students get up to two years of extra secondary education compared to us? Myles325a (talk) 08:17, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Title of article

Sixth form covers years 12 and 13 in England and Wales. The title of this article is therefore somewhat misleading. I suggest it should be retitled "Sixth form". Does anyone have any objections? Dahliarose (talk) 18:23, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted the move that took it away from that place originally! Tafkam (talk) 01:00, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Misunderstanding of sixth form

The writer of this articles suggests that the five forms before this were called 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th (ie. those which we now call years 7 to 11) and that the sixth form is so called because it follows on.

This is not the case, historically the ten forms before this were called lower first, upper first, lower second, upper second and so on. Then these ten forms were relabelled but lower and upper sixth kept their label. In some of the richer private schools, these labels still exist.

In fact, the labelling which I mention in the 1st paragraph probably came about after the sixth form retained its label.

86.165.243.77 (talk) 18:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Were there perhaps differences in the private and state sector? My school certainly had the simple year groups from first through to fifth withouth any uppers and lowers. How can there be ten forms when the transfer to secondary school starts at age 11 and there are only five years of schooling until the age of 16? The statements really need references, but I'm not sure where to start looking. Dahliarose (talk) 19:54, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

The first ever schools in England were private but known as "public". The forms were spread out over more than one school. Just by googling, I came across this school which uses the old labelling - http://www.withington.manchester.sch.uk ~~

The system worked like this:

Primary school

Reception (age 4-5)

First form - Year 1 (age 5-6).

Lower II - Year 2 (age 6-7).

Upper II - Year 3 (age 7-8).

Lower III - Year 4 (age 8-9).

Middle III - Year 5 (age 9-10).

Upper III - Year 6 (age 10-11).

Secondary School

Lower IV - Year 7 (age 11-12).

Upper IV - Year 8 (age 12-13).

Lower V - Year 9 (age 13-14).

Middle V - Year 10 (age 14-15).

Upper V - Year 11 (age 15-16).

Lower VI - Year 12 (age 16-17).

Upper VI - Year 13 (age 17-18).

Some schools still use this system. One example: St. Felix School, Southwold, Suffolk. 201.214.28.91 (talk) 14:05, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Really? I'd have said the Upper Third was Year 7. In my school (St Bede's College, Manchester) children joined in the Upper Third (U3) after taking the entrance exam (and the Trafford Eleven Plus if their parents lived there and wanted the LEA to foot the bill). This led on to L4, U4, L5, U5, then the Lower and Upper Sixth. Casper Gutman (talk • contributions) 14:01, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Examinations/Ambiguity

The article suggests that Sixth Form students 'normally work towards A Levels'. This is somewhat untrue as Sixth Form students will undertake a large number of programmes, of which A Levels is just one. In modern education there is nothing 'normal' about studying A Levels - the choice is much more diverse and covers different levels of course. In addition the article suggests that Sixth Form is for 16-18 year olds exclusively and students can actually stay on at a secondary school until they are 19. (This also makes the link to Wiktionary a little questionable.)

In addition, the section on the number of A Levels students require for universities and the number they choose to take in the Sixth Form is very generic and probably based on personal experiences of Post 16. The approach it discusses is how some Sixth Forms are modeled, but certainly not all - the article is littered with 'usually' and 'normally' and thus fairly ambiguous, if not inaccurate on the whole. The whole article, which on the face of it seems complete, needs a lot of work in terms of tidying and removal of generalisations. Mmorrismjm (talk) 23:19, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Scotland

Moved from ANI:

Your "explanation" for obliterating an entire section was that Sixth Form is called Sixth Year and that therefore "Sixth Form" does not exist in Scotand. That's like arguing that children do not exist in Scotland because they are called "bairns", or that colour does not exist in America because it is called "color". We have redirects for terminological differences. Paul B (talk) 16:11, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• Amid the multiple unexplained deletions here [1], I'm curious re: this claim [2], and whether the image does or does not belong. JNW (talk) 16:17, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

And while not a reliable source, here's a listing of Sixth Forms in Edinburgh [3]. JNW (talk) 16:19, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for replying Paul, I don't think you understood my edit, it is not a case of differing terminology. Sixth form in England refers to the final two years of secondary education; in Scotland "Sixth Year or S6" refers to the final year of secondary school - "Sixth Forms" do not exist in Scotland. JNW, the Edinburgh list doesn’t appear to be related to secondary education (Durham.bug (talk) 16:23, 16 April 2013 (UTC))

This should be discussed on the article page. Yes, I was exaggerating a bit. Of course it's a valid point that the structure of the education years is different. That fact is itself notable, and the differences need to be properly explained in the article. Just dumping useful material is not the answer. It diminishes rather than enhances the article. Paul B (talk) 16:29, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't dumping it, I am going to include the information in another article. (Durham.bug (talk) 16:35, 16 April 2013 (UTC))

You were dumping it from the article - an article in which it was usefully present. Paul B (talk) 16:48, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Fettes has a sixth form [4] and Merlin has a list of Colleges and Sixth Form Schools within Scotland [5]
It may be that Scottish sixth forms relate to independent schools - but they certainly exist. - Arjayay (talk) 17:21, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

To Arjayay, the Merlin link does not include any sixth form colleges. It is not useful, it's incredibly misleading, the only schools which use "sixth form" in Scotland are private and do not follow the Scottish national curriculum, therefore what is the point of talking about S6 and Advanced Highers in the article? All that is needed is the mention that some Scottish private schools have sixth forms. (Durham.bug (talk) 18:33, 16 April 2013 (UTC))

A google search for Scotland "sixth form" gives 1.47 million matches - I just picked a couple from near the top - there are plenty more. We have, however, established that despite the claim "There is no sixth form in Scotland", there are sixth forms in Scotland, albeit that most appear to be in private schools - I know of no reliable source that states that they all are.

As User:Paul Barlow states above "it's a valid point that the structure of the education years is different. That fact is itself notable, and the differences need to be properly explained in the article."

IMHO the explanation of the Scottish system in this article is rather long, and could be reduced, with a link to a fuller explanation elsewhere, but the fuller explanation needs to be written, consensus on this agreed, and the differences explained in this article, before reducing the explanation of the Scottish system in this article.
Arjayay (talk) 12:34, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Scottish sixth year is simply the last year of possible secondary education. It is not comparable to sixth form in England which is two years long and the main route into university. In Scotland, the Highers required for 1st-year university entry across the U.K. can be achieved in either the fifth or sixth years. Advanced Highers are equivalent to the first year of Scottish unis, and these can be optionally sat in sixth year. I don't see how S6 fits into this article. given that it does not share the same role as a sixth form. M.T.S.W.A. (talk) 16:20, 19 February 2019 (UTC)