Why your Sixth Form retention is slipping (and what to do about it)
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if your 6th Form numbers are wobbling, it didn’t start with an open morning gone wrong or a competitor suddenly getting shiny. It started months, sometimes years earlier, when pupils and families quietly stopped feeling seen.
Retention doesn’t collapse overnight. It leaks. Slowly. Quietly. Predictably.
The biggest mistake schools make is assuming loyalty.
You believe that because a pupil has been with you for years, they’ll naturally stay for Sixth Form.
Wrong.
At this transition point, families re-evaluate everything. They shop around. They compare. They consider a fresh start.
And meanwhile, your competitors are courting them with precision, energy and beautifully-crafted messaging.
If you’re not actively nurturing your existing pupils through this decision, you’re leaving the back door wide open. And some of you only notice the gap once the acceptances stop coming in.
SO, WHAT TO DO?
Retention is a marketing job, not an admin task. You need to treat your current pupils with the same intensity, creativity and strategic focus that you throw at new enquiries.
That means segmenting your audience properly, understanding their motivations, resolving their anxieties about Sixth Form and showing a clear, compelling pathway that feels worth staying for (from both a parent AND from the student perspective).
It means sharpening your value proposition. Not vague platitudes. Not dusty brochures. Real reasons why staying for Sixth Form is the smart move.
It means building relationships long before Year 11. If the first time you start “selling” your Sixth Form is during GCSE mocks, you’re already too late.
Retention isn’t about begging families to stay. It’s about proving, consistently and convincingly, that staying is the better choice.
Stop assuming loyalty. Start earning it.
And if you need help tightening the strategy, sharpening the story and turning the leakage into loyalty, Stickman is here to help.
Get in touch to discuss more ways you can improve your school’s marketing & admissions.
This is great, particularly the bit which says: “If the first time you start “selling” your Sixth Form is during GCSE mocks, you’re already too late.”
It’s important we help school leaders and their teams understand that relationship-building and retaining pupils into their Sixth Form settings is a long-term game.
Schools need to engage with pupils and parents/carers through value-add marketing – specific for them – at an early age to remain at the forefront of minds when it comes to decision making.
Samuel Poole, Thinking Schools Academy Trust
Thanks so much for your comment, Samuel. We agree entirely. It’s so tempting to focus on the right now and not look at the long game – which can very much be to our detriment!