YATE and Chipping Sodbury students embarking on A-level and further education courses this term are the first to join a new three-way linked sixth form.

Cotswold Edge Sixth Form, a collaboration between Brimsham Green and Chipping Sodbury schools and Yate International Academy, opened its doors on today (September 2) for the first time.

Its launch follows a directive from the South Gloucestershire Education Commission last year to improve standards in post-16 education across the whole district.

But Brimsham Green head teacher Kim Garland said the three schools had been in discussions about reforming the link, which had been running for years until Yate pulled out when it became a federated academy with Winterbourne International Academy in 2009, for some time prior to the report.

“This is a really positive step forward,” said Ms Garland. “Outcomes at Key Stage 5 in South Gloucestershire are not as good as they need to be. The report recommended consolidating sixth form provision and we are absolutely clear this is a way of raising standards.

“We have a really good working relationship between the three schools and this makes sense.

“Students will have continuity with teachers they know and there is flexibility so they can do pretty much any combination of courses they want.”

In recent years, school leavers from Yate and Chipping Sodbury have increasingly left the area to attend South Gloucestershire and Stroud College in Filton, St Brendan’s College near Brislington and Katharine Lady Berkeley’s (KLB) sixth form in Wotton-under-Edge. But staff at Cotswold Edge hope the new sixth form will mean more teenagers continue their studies locally.

Sixteen-year-old Lucy Conibear, who gained nine A*s and two As at GCSE, looked at taking her A-levels in biology, chemistry, maths and religious studies at KLB but has decided to study at Cotswold Edge.

The former Brimsham Green pupil said: “They get good results here and I know everybody here. Plus I live in Yate so I won’t have to travel.”

Billie Norcombe, 16, will be studying four A-levels across all three sites.

“With the three schools put together there were more courses on offer here,” she said. “And I wanted to do film studies which they run.”

After not doing as well as expected in his first year A-level exams at KLB, seventeen-year-old Jan van Bergen, from Old Sodbury, has returned to re-sit his first year at Cotswold Edge.

“I was travelling an hour a day there and back,” he said. “I decided to come back as this is closer.”

Luke Butters, 16, was going to follow his older brother by studying A-levels at KLB.

“I was really determined to come here,” said Luke, from Chipping Sodbury. “There are a lot more people in the sixth form now than when my brother studied and I think it has really turned around.”

More than 200 Year 12 students have so far enrolled on 35 different courses at the new sixth form and will travel between the three sites by a free shuttle bus. Courses range from traditional academic A-levels to more vocational courses utilising facilities at Yate academy, which underwent a £16million transformation in 2009.

Gill Hilleard, head of sixth form at Chipping Sodbury School, said: “A lot of students were going out of county and not having a good experience.

“Now they are not being bussed out somewhere they don’t know and there are so many more subjects we can offer. The staff are really positive.”

Eventually, Ms Garland said, it is hoped Cotswold Edge proves so popular a separate sixth form centre could be built.

An opening evening for the 2016 intake will be held at Yate International Academy on October 20 (from 6m).