NCS 6th Form Advice

Don’t do it girl run

Do you go to the school?

Yeah and I want to burn it down girl RUN

Hi. I’m thinking of applying to NCS 6th form but I’m not too sure what to include in the personal statement. Can somebody give advice on what to write and maybe some general information about the school and applications?
My main questions
1. What is the school like and how are the teachers?
2. Is it a school worth going to?
3. Advice for applications
My predicted grades are mainly 9s, except for French and English language (which is an 8)
Thank you in advance!

skl is difficult but small price to pay to get into oxford, cambridge, harvard, MIT etc. some teachers are strict, others bit more relaxed but all give u lots of hw and expect u to work hard, in return, they all are more than willing to help like explaining questions or hw u dont undertsand at break/lunch and encourage u to ask questions. u can also tell they all rlly love their subjects so its nice environmentg to be in if u wanna go to top skls/ do top degree apprenticeshups. btw ur application dont rlly matter as long as u have the grades. Every skl values grades the most, and ur grades are good enough, esp if the 4 subjects u want to do are the ones u have 9s in. Js dont slack/ get overconfident near exams and u hopefully will leave secondary w gcses that u are proud of and can open any door u want in the future!

Thanks! I read that apparently you can get kicked out if you get below a C in y12. Would you recommend going to this school, and what are your favourite things about it?

u only get "kicked out" if u get below a C for your end of y12 exams. and "kicked" means being forced to drop the subjects. if ur doing 4, that means dropping to 3. if ur doing 3, that means dropping to 2. But people rarely leave after being forced to drop until 2 subjects because no one rlly gets below a C in end of years. i think only like 3-4 students have in the past 5 years (out of over a thousand students). before u even reach that point of such a low grade, teachers will intervene and they do notice early anyways to help u get back on track. trust me its not something u should worry about because getting lower than a C in any subject for ur end of years means u didnt revise at all the entire year which is js unrealistic

Thanks. What was your application like and what grades did you achieve?

only grades matter for application (i got 8 9s)

u only get "kicked out" if u get below a C for your end of y12 exams. and "kicked" means being forced to drop the subjects. if ur doing 4, that means dropping to 3. if ur doing 3, that means dropping to 2. But people rarely leave after being forced to drop until 2 subjects because no one rlly gets below a C in end of years. i think only like 3-4 students have in the past 5 years (out of over a thousand students). before u even reach that point of such a low grade, teachers will intervene and they do notice early anyways to help u get back on track. trust me its not something u should worry about because getting lower than a C in any subject for ur end of years means u didnt revise at all the entire year which is js unrealistic

For serious advice, I’d really recommend LAES and BMA over NCS. the year 12s here tend to sing praise for ncs (I used to too) but this year’s year 12s had it much easier than the current y13s did and generally it gets much worse in y13. The standard of teaching is generally very high, especially for the science departments, but the only competent psychology teacher has left and the school seems incapable of finding a good econ teacher so both departments are a mess. Student mental health is extremely low at NCS and we all have basically no social life to speak of. They say teachers are understanding but if you seek help for catch-up or extensions e.g. if you have an interview and had to miss school/need to spend time preparing and don’t want to waste time doing ur weekly 16hrs of homework they’re unaccomodating. I know young carers who have caring responsibilities and can’t stay after school for a 1-1/detention yet are just told to make “alternative arrangements” hours before they have a responsibility to attend to. I swear the SLT thrive off of making students unhappy and going on power trips. NCS loves to tell us all about how we should sleep well, and have hobbies, and take care of our mental health or whatever but give us no time whatsoever to do so. The only school event we have had was culture day which they have now removed. There’s also no prom, or sports day for year 13s. Essentially we’re expected to work throughout the school day then an additional 20hrs per week outside of school hours and then juggle family responsibilities, uni applications, work experience, interviews, entrance exams, and more on top of that without any breaks. The NCS idea of a restful holiday is 6 hours of solid work daily.
Obviously, A Levels are going to be hard anywhere you go. I can really appreciate NCS because they literally force you to study whether u want to or not which is useful for maintaining a high grade, and most of the teachers genuinely want to help you succeed. But other schools have just as good grade results as ours and their students are much much happier, have much better social life, and aren’t controlled and treated like children. I’m not talking as someone who’s just a lazy student, I’ve got friends at both BMA and lae and after discussion the genuine consensus is that ncs kinda just sucks.

That’s not true, quite a few people get below Cs, I know many of them. What they do is they make u resit it approximately one months later, and if you still get a C again they do make u drop the subject and start another one (so you’d attend y12 classes as a y13) but most people albeit for a couple improve for their resit. The resit predicted grade is capped at a B, though so you’re disadvantaged to top unis

For serious advice, I’d really recommend LAES and BMA over NCS. the year 12s here tend to sing praise for ncs (I used to too) but this year’s year 12s had it much easier than the current y13s did and generally it gets much worse in y13. The standard of teaching is generally very high, especially for the science departments, but the only competent psychology teacher has left and the school seems incapable of finding a good econ teacher so both departments are a mess. Student mental health is extremely low at NCS and we all have basically no social life to speak of. They say teachers are understanding but if you seek help for catch-up or extensions e.g. if you have an interview and had to miss school/need to spend time preparing and don’t want to waste time doing ur weekly 16hrs of homework they’re unaccomodating. I know young carers who have caring responsibilities and can’t stay after school for a 1-1/detention yet are just told to make “alternative arrangements” hours before they have a responsibility to attend to. I swear the SLT thrive off of making students unhappy and going on power trips. NCS loves to tell us all about how we should sleep well, and have hobbies, and take care of our mental health or whatever but give us no time whatsoever to do so. The only school event we have had was culture day which they have now removed. There’s also no prom, or sports day for year 13s. Essentially we’re expected to work throughout the school day then an additional 20hrs per week outside of school hours and then juggle family responsibilities, uni applications, work experience, interviews, entrance exams, and more on top of that without any breaks. The NCS idea of a restful holiday is 6 hours of solid work daily.
Obviously, A Levels are going to be hard anywhere you go. I can really appreciate NCS because they literally force you to study whether u want to or not which is useful for maintaining a high grade, and most of the teachers genuinely want to help you succeed. But other schools have just as good grade results as ours and their students are much much happier, have much better social life, and aren’t controlled and treated like children. I’m not talking as someone who’s just a lazy student, I’ve got friends at both BMA and lae and after discussion the genuine consensus is that ncs kinda just sucks.

This is going to sound really stupid but how legit is this school? My parents are a bit worried bc we’re not from London and they think it’s too good to be true