For those of you thinking about post 16 education in a mainstream environment, I thought it might be helpful to give you some information that I am aware of.
The cuts to post 16 education are extensive. I work in a college and our funding will be cut by about 30% over the next couple of years. This will happen everywhere. Schools are actually facing bigger cuts because they used to get more funding for post 16 than colleges and will now be the same. However because there are not the same cuts to pre 16 education, it might be easier for schools to absorb the cuts into their total budget.
In practice the impact will vary from place to place but I can tell you a bit about what is happening where I work. After the cuts the budget would be just enough to cover staff salaries. Teaching staff are not being replaced, we have increased the number of lessons we teach by about 15% and we are enrolling more students. What this means in practice is that we have more students and less free time (and energy!) to support them. Unofficially I hear rumours also that our learning support department is being cut and potential redundancies. Actually we are not the worst off because we are oversubscribed so can grow our student numbers. Some may have to close.
If you are looking at sixth form for next year, be really careful what you choose and ask some tough questions. And be prepared for what you/your child might face. We have a brilliant SENCO, I'd be surprised if she ever puts in less than an 80 hour week, just can't see how she can keep up the same level of support if they cut her department.