Sixth Form Open Evenings 2026: How to Apply for September 2027 Entry

Year 11 pupils in England and Wales, and Year 12 pupils in Northern Ireland, are now visiting sixth form open evenings and comparing post-16 routes for September 2027. In England these include A-levels, T Levels and BTECs, and the first V Levels arrive in 2027 in education, finance and digital. There is no national closing date for sixth form applications in England: each school or college runs its own timetable and sets its own entry requirements.

That makes autumn 2026 the time to gather information: the subjects on offer, the entry grades, and how each sixth form performs. In England and Northern Ireland you can compare A-level results on our league tables, and in England an Ofsted report card from an inspection since November 2025 grades a school's post-16 provision separately.

In England, you apply for a sixth form place directly to each school or college, not through your council as you do for Year 7. Each one sets its own closing date, so note it at the open evening. In Wales and Northern Ireland, check each school or college's own process and dates too.

A school may ask for your child's predicted GCSE grades and make an offer that depends on the grades your child actually gets. GCSE results come out in August 2027, so a conditional offer isn't final until then.

Sixth form entry requirements vary by school, but many set a minimum number of GCSE passes at a given grade as a baseline, plus higher grades for entry onto particular A-level courses: for example, a stronger grade in the GCSE subject itself before starting it at A-level. Vocational and BTEC routes may set different combinations of grades.

Because offers are conditional on GCSE results, it's worth asking at the open evening what happens if predicted grades and actual results differ, and how the school's waiting list works if your child misses out first time.

The basics of sixth form entry are similar across the three nations, but the law differs. In England, young people must stay in education or training until 18 under the Education and Skills Act 2008. That can be full-time study at a school or college, an apprenticeship, or part-time study alongside 20 hours or more a week of work or volunteering, so it doesn't have to be a school sixth form. Wales and Northern Ireland have no such duty: young people can leave school at the end of Year 11 in Wales and at the end of Year 12 in Northern Ireland.

Support for additional needs works differently too. Under the current rules in England, if your child has an EHC plan, the move to post-16 runs through the plan: the council must review it and name the school or college by 31 March 2027, and a school or college named in the plan must admit your child. Wales uses individual development plans (IDPs) under its additional learning needs (ALN) system, and Northern Ireland uses statements of special educational needs. Whatever the plan, raise your child's needs with each sixth form at the open evening, and with your council or the Education Authority early.

At sixth form, places depend first on meeting the entry requirements. If more applicants meet them than there are places, some schools then rank them by home-to-school distance, so read each sixth form's published admission arrangements. For some schools in England, the Admissions tab on the school's School Atlas page shows them.

We don't hold offer distances for sixth form places. The last-distance-offered figures on School Atlas are for younger entry points such as Reception and Year 7, so they don't tell you how hard a sixth form is to get into.

If a state school turns down a sixth form application for September 2027, you can appeal. In England and Wales, appeals go to an independent appeal panel, and the young person can appeal in their own right as well as their parents. If the school refused because it was full, the panel checks that the admission arrangements were lawful and correctly applied, then weighs the case for admitting your child against the school's case that it can't take more. If the refusal was because your child didn't meet the entry requirements, the panel can't reassess their ability: it decides whether the school's decision was reasonable on the information it had.

In Northern Ireland, appeals go to an independent admissions appeal tribunal, which you reach through the Education Authority. It can only decide whether the school applied its published admissions criteria correctly. For a college or an independent school, ask how it handles a refusal. Read more in our school admissions appeals guide.

With open evenings running through autumn 2026, now is the time to shortlist sixth forms, note each one's own application deadline, and check its entry requirements against your child's predicted GCSE grades. Compare A-level results on our league tables (England and Northern Ireland). For many schools in England, the school's School Atlas page also lists the A-level subjects its students took, from the latest DfE figures. For help weighing up staying on, moving or going to college, read our guide to choosing a sixth form.