Help Choosing College/sixth Form In London .. ?
Dec.26, 2009 in
College Selection
Right now I am considering City And Islington College, Woodhouse College and Camden School for Girls Sixth Form,.
I am mostly looking at schools in the North/Central London.
I am also not looking at the education aspects of colleges, but the social sides of them too so if anyone can share PERSONAL EXPERIENCES about their colleges it would be great.
JUST ANY ADVICE ON CHOOSING A COLLEGE IN LONDON WOULD BE HELPFUL THANK YOU 
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December 26th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I went to Woodhouse and left there in 2005 after my a levels. The level of teaching there is second to none and in terms of socialising, my best friends are those from Woodhouse & not Uni, in fact I’m going to see them in about half an hour for a birthday surprise!
You don’t say what subjects you wish to study, because that plays a major role in the college that you choose. It must have changed from when I was there, but they have a great science department, fully equipped for all three, biology, physics and chemistry. They have good language resources, fantastic sports facilities and a large music and art department. I studied Biology, Physics & Spanish for my A-levels but because of the wide range of extra curricular activities they provided on the Wednesday afternoon (have no idea if they still do that), I got to explore the rest of the college’s facilities. They even had ice skating club where you could go to Alexandra Palace and skate around!
I live in Edgware, and I chose this college because of its reputation, and the fact that they did Spanish! It was easy to get to because the 221 bus went straight there.
Don’t forget the difference between a 6th form and a college. In a college you are pretty much left to your own devices and nobody (especially in Woodhouse) will spoon feed you like they do at GCSE. It is a big leap from GCSE to A-Level, so what I did at Woodhouse is make use of the library as much as I could and get one to ones with my teachers as much as I could to make sure i was doing what I was meant to be, and this better prepared me for uni life because it was pretty much the same approach to learning. In 6th form, you are still part of a school, and many school rules( I dont really know much about Camden School for Girls) still apply to the 6th Formers, restricting them to grow as adults. This is my view, 6th Form does have its pros as well.
What else did I get up to… North Finchley has changed a lot since 2005! But we used to walk up to Tally Ho Corner to get fish and chips and you usually know who has the same free periods as you so you tend to become really friendly with them and form good relationships. Brent Cross was a bus ride away for shopping, as was Wood Green for the cinema. I had a great time there…but go and have a look at the open evening, figure out what subjects you want to do and ask to look at their syllabus… don’t forget to think about how you will get to your college/6th form, and if you are willing to travel more or less for that 9am start!
All the best xxx