Raising the Participation Age

Explaining Raising the Participation Age

There were important change to the law in summer 2013: affecting how long students will be staying in education or training for.

• If you were in year 11 (during or after the academic year 2014 - 2015), you must continue in education or training until the end of the academic year in which you have your 18th birthday.

This doesn’t mean that you have to stay at the same school and go into the Sixth Form.

You may decide to:

• go to Sixth form

• go to college

• take an Apprenticeship or job with regular training

• take a part-time education or training course if you are employed, self-employed or volunteering for more than 20 hours per week

You may want to:

• build on your GCSE qualifications by moving up to AS or A levels in sixth form, sixth form college or a further education college

• apply for an Apprenticeship or a job with training

• take some work-related courses, for example, OCR Nationals, BTECs, T Levels or City & Guilds qualifications

• carry on working towards qualifications on a Foundation Learning course

• do some voluntary work alongside a part time course or training provided by the organisation you are helping.

Why has this happened?

Most young people already carry on in learning after the age of 16 at the moment – they do this because:

• they know that it gives them the best chance to get the qualifications and skills to help them achieve whatever they want to do in life

• they also know that it will improve their prospects for getting a better job and higher earnings.

This change means that ALL young people will be able to benefit from staying in education or training.

There is more information on the Department for Education’s website