Why are sixth formers leaving the county?

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Research needs to be done to find out why so many Powys school pupils are leaving the county to continue their sixth form education, and where do they go.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s Liberal Democrat/Labour cabinet on Tuesday, councillors agreed to start discussions to shape the way post-16 education is conducted in Powys.

This is an attempt to address the exodus of sixth form pupils out of county and to make the system in Powys more financially viable and improve A-level results.

The report explained that in 2023/24, 24.5% of Powys A-level pupils achieved grades A* (star)-A, however, this was below the Wales average of 30%, and that 73.1% of other Powys pupils achieved A* to A grades which was also below the Wales average of 78%.

In 2022, the council rolled out the Chweched Powys Sixth model in a bid to bring a more collaborative and online learning approach between schools throughout Powys.

In theory, this means that a pupil at a school in one part of county might well be taught a sixth form subject by a teacher many miles away at the other end of the county.

Education Portfolio Holder, Cllr Pete Roberts (Liberal Democrat), said: “When we look at the wider issues, I do agree that the Chweched model has not delivered in a way we expected it to.”

He believed there was “no reason” why pupils in the county should be “underperforming” and receiving results especially below the Welsh average “unless we are losing our brightest and our best”.

Cllr Roberts said: “I want to see greater depth in that analysis because it is very easy to look at the headline figures and say there is a problem when in actual fact if we had all of our pupils staying in our schools, we should be achieving significantly higher (results) than this.

“We need to understand why.”

He believed this could be added to the final report.

Director of Education, Dr Richard Jones, said: “We’ve noted those points they are for a future paper after the engagement work has taken place.

“The point you make is that we cannot uncouple key stage five (16 -18 years) from the implications on key stage four, three and two.”

Cabinet Member for a Safer Powys, Cllr Richard Church (Liberal Democrat), said: “The prime objective is that young people have a range of choice and a quality of teaching that they have a right to expect.

“The young people voices are the most important in this. Those coming up to post-16 education and those who are in it.

“I’m also interested in the views of those who are just leaving it and are moving on to university or other careers as they will have been through the system and have the most recent experience in it.”

He said that he would be interested in “comparing” the views of those who had studied in a “school” or “college” environment to find out “which they might prefer”.

Cllr Church hope this could be done before the end of the summer term “before they leave for university when it would be difficult to track them down”.

Dr Jones said: “It is encouraging to be asked for that deep engagement with the youth voice.”

Dr Jones explained that a strand of the engagement proceed would be to “capture” the opinions of these youngsters.

“We will have the right level of consultation with the right range of young people,” he stressed.