11 Plus Exams Forum

My DS has applied for entry into Parmiter's 6th form as an external student. He exceeds the entry criteria (predicted grades) for the subjects he wishes to study.

Any advice regarding 6th form study and the likely standards applied to external students would be appreciated.

What did the school say when you visited the 6th form open day?

The policy is here:

http://www.parmiters.herts.sch.uk/filea ... s_2017.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The requirements will be on the school website. Usually, although external students have to meet the same criteria as internal ones, realistically the ones with the best grades will get places as there will be a limited number of external places, whereas internal students will just need to meet the criteria to stay there.

maxhead wrote:My DS has applied for entry into Parmiter's 6th form as an external student. He exceeds the entry criteria (predicted grades) for the subjects he wishes to study.

Any advice regarding 6th form study and the likely standards applied to external students would be appreciated.

Many thanks for all the replies. My DS has been offered a place. His projected grades are 8,7,7,A*,A*,A*,A*,A,A. I don't know where on the list for external students this placed him.

He wishes to study Computer Science at A Level. Does the CS department have a good reputation?

Any advice would be appreciated

It won't place him anywhere on the external list, currently. I suspect the school will have made offers to anyone with predicted grades that meet their 6th Form criteria, with the caveat that these are subject to confirmation when results come out. Once results have been released in August, firm offers will be made to the top scoring external students, up to the point that all the "free" seats (once the internal students who have met the entrance criteria have been offered) left are full. Effectively, your son may make his predicted grades but still not get a place if the school 6th form is full because lots of external students have scored better than your son.

Internal students usually have to meet the criteria as a minimum. External students have to meet the criteria and be the top scoring students (up to the point the seats are full) - ie, generally external students have to do better than minimum criteria to get a firm offer in August.

[quote="kenyancowgirl"]It won't place him anywhere on the external list, currently. I suspect the school will have made offers to anyone with predicted grades that meet their 6th Form criteria



There are 50 external places and offers are determined by predicted grade. Only 50 offers have been made according to the published policy. There may be further offers to external students if they have space in September.

Well, there you go then! What do I know?! I have described what happens in our school and thought it was the same set up for most state schools. Very interesting way to make a selection as predicted grades can be very wrong and the school opens itself to losing some very strong candidates by limiting how many offers they make - students who do well (better than predicted) are likely to go where they already have an offer rather than scrapping around in August for the leftovers of the 50.

maxhead wrote: He wishes to study Computer Science at A Level. Does the CS department have a good reputation?

Any advice would be appreciated

The A level results for 2016 show no-one got an A or A* in CS. Did you ask whether this was a cohort issue or typical results?

http://www.parmiters.herts.sch.uk/filea ... e_text.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Guest55 wrote:

maxhead wrote: He wishes to study Computer Science at A Level. Does the CS department have a good reputation?

Any advice would be appreciated

The A level results for 2016 show no-one got an A or A* in CS. Did you ask whether this was a cohort issue or typical results?

http://www.parmiters.herts.sch.uk/filea ... e_text.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thanks for that. I assumed this was the old IT A Levels that are being scrapped in favour of the more rigorous CS. The CS GCSE results seem very good at 72% A or A*
We have a meeting at the school soon and I hope to find out more.