Gap year after gcse

I went through a mental health crisis during my gcse period and completely lost myself and fell into severe depression not being able to do anything. I want to take a gap year to find myself again and gain new experiences. Will it be easy to get back into education or sixth form after ?

Reply 1

MindMax2000

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Itsinny

To get into 6th form, not really. To get back into education, it depends on the education and where you want to go.

If you have lower grades than what you need for college, then you would likely need to do resits.
For most 6th forms, the latest you can apply is when you're 17. Any age after that is going to make it very difficult to get in. Anytime after 19, you might be able to get into some colleges where they require you to pay for the A Levels yourself, but the colleges that offer this is few and far in between.
If you need to do resits, the college would sometimes allow you to do it alongside the course that you want to study. However, you should ideally do this right after you get your GCSE results at 16.

Should you wish not to do A Levels or IB, then you can sometimes do BTEC and Access to HE at adult/vocational colleges. However, A Levels and IB would be more widely accepted than BTEC and Access.

If you need counselling, please do so.