Sixth form courses "paused" at Chepstow School

Sixth form courses, including A-Level geography, have been “paused” at a Monmouthshire comprehensive school and won’t be available this September. 

“Low take-up” from students has been blamed for the decision not to run a number of key stage five courses, for sixth formers aged 16 to 18, at Chepstow School which also has a “significant deficit”. 

Councillor Laura Wright, Mommouthshire County Council’s recently appointed cabinet member for education, said funding for post 16 education is affected by the number of statutory school age pupils, aged 11 to 16, enrolled at the school and post 16 options available nearby in Wales and England. 

Cllr Wright said the school’s headteacher had shared with parents and students “as early as possible” it had to “pause” a number of courses. 

The Labour councillor added: “The school is in a significant financial deficit at the moment and it means unfortunately it is not economical to run those courses with very low numbers and every course has a detrimental impact on the whole school budget. 

“But on a more positive note the school is going to retain the skills to teach the courses as pupil numbers increase and it is the intention of the school to restore the courses as soon as possible.” 

Conservative Rachel Buckler, who asked for a statement on the “breadth of subjects” at key stage five at Chepstow said she was concerned A-level geography is among those no longer available. 

The Devauden councillor said it had been included in the school’s prospectus and students were only told after putting their subject choices forward. 

Cllr Buckler said she thought geography would be a “common choice” for pupils as it is cited by Russel Group universities as a “facilitating subject”. 

She asked Cllr Wright “what message are we sending about our commitment to academic breadth and ambition” and said young people will now be considering leaving Monmouthshire including for schools and colleges in England. 

Cllr Wright said decisions on which subjects are provided are for headteachers and governors but she would raise the issues Cllr Buckler had highlighted at a pre-planned meeting with Chepstow’s head and would pass any information back to Cllr Buckler. 

Monmouthshire also supports an e-sgol online learning partnership between its four secondary schools to offer courses in computer science, Welsh second language and Spanish which have tradtionally only had a small number of students at each school studying them.