ABSTRACT
The sixth form originated in that most English of institutions, the public school, a source that can be detected in many modern versions of school-based 16-19 provision today.
The public school system, as we know it, dates back only to the nineteenth century, although some of its best-known examples were founded over 400 years ago. The nineteenth-century public schools were designed to produce an administrative, political and social elite and provided an exclusive way of life for the children of the ruling class. Their present-day successors number 233 with a sixth form population of 48,000.
