A-level students from Knowsley having to be transported to St Helens

Knowsley’s dire A-level offering means many youngsters are left with ‘no choice’ but to leave the borough to carry on with their studies. And the council’s chief executive has now said the council needs to do better.

The decline of Knowsley’s A-level offering has been a contentious subject for some years.  When Halewood Academy closed its sixth form provision in 2017 amid record results, it marked the end of an era for the borough’s post-16 education.

Students then had to travel to other areas, with many making the trip to St Helens College or to sixth form facilities in Liverpool if they wanted to continue past GCSE.

By 2020 there was some limited A level courses on offer in the borough – at All Saints College and at Knowsley Community College.  Although insufficient pupil numbers meant students would often find themselves being transferred to St Helens College campus anyway.

Many studnets from Knowsley attend St Helens College

Speaking at a Knowsley Council meeting last night, youth cabinet member Isabel Cosgrove told the board: “It’s a massive thing for every young person to go to school and to high school.

“There are still huge issues with the A levels and discussion on how much there is for young people, I know personally I’m going to have to travel out of the borough to get A level education.

“To bring that in borough would help more people to get there being closer to home and inspire more people to get onto A levels and university afterwards. Is there anything we can add to the 2030 strategy to help with A levels?”

Knowsley Council cabinet member for children’s services, Cllr Margaret Harvey said: “Right at this moment, this year, we’re in the process of considering not just A levels but the offer that is out there for young people and all our learners, whether younger or not.

“We’ve got to consider T Levels  too, vocational offers apprenticeships.  It’s bigger than just A-levels is what I’m saying, but it’s a big part of that.”

Chief executive Mike Harden said Knowsley Council had been left powerless to act after business decisions by the borough’s secondary schools not to offer A-level provision.

Mr Harden said: “There is a chink of light maybe from the government.  I don’t often say this, but what they’ve said under levelling up is to identify Knowsley as one of 26 educational improvement places in the country.

He added “This should have come in 10 or 20 years ago but here we are.”

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Referring to what has led to the borough’s lack of places, Mr Harden said: “Schools pulled out of the A level market as they needed to focus on their core business with secondary schools struggling across Knowsley. We can’t tell those schools what to do.

“Now [the government] are saying local authorities should have more of a role, whether that is a local authority becoming its own academy trust or setting up a free school or working with providers.

“if it was down to Knowsley Council we would have that A-level provision in the borough.  If there’s one young person in Knowsley discouraged from further studies due to travel arrangements we’ve got not choice.

“Schools say we need to focus on GCSEs and that now is not the time to focus on A levels and one by one they pulled out of the market.  We need to get them back in or find someone to do that for us.

“I have that conversation regularly and it is absolutely a priority for us.  We will look at every options open to us and that’s  where we want to end up.

“We’ve got to come up with a solution for that in the borough, it’s an obvious gap in the offer.  What do we offer 15 or 16 year olds? An opportunity to get on a bus.  We need to do better than that.”