Decision details

To seek approval to begin a consultation on a proposal to remove Sixth Form Provision at Wensleydale School and Sixth Form by the 31 August 2025.

Executive Member approval to consult on a proposal that the Council should change the age range at Wensleydale School and Sixth Form, Leyburn, effective from 31 August 2025, by ceasing the Sixth Form Provision.

Due partly to the demographics of the school’s sparse, and even super sparse, catchment area across Wensleydale, numbers on roll at Wensleydale School and Sixth Form dipped for five years, making it more difficult to maintain viable class sizes at post 16 in terms of quality of experience, subject breadth and financial viability. Wensleydale School and Sixth Form is a relatively small secondary school, and with the government’s withdrawal of funding for the school’s BTECs, it was difficult for the school to offer a curriculum with the sufficient breadth required. Though judging the school as ‘Good’ overall, Ofsted highlighted how the post-16 offering had ‘narrowed' and acknowledged this was ‘in part due to financial constraints’.

In response to falling numbers of sixth form pupils, and following consultation in Autumn 2022, the decision was made in Spring 2023 by the Governing Board to temporarily suspend entries to the Sixth Form at Wensleydale School and Sixth Form for two years to take effect from September 2023. The period of suspension has allowed time to assess the practicalities of continuing with post-16 provision, given the Government’s withdrawal of the vocational BTEC courses, which the school offered.

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