Not our children. Are we seriously going to deny our children, now in primary schools, all that the sixth form of a school has to offer?

Everyone reading this will remember the sixth form.

Some seemed already adults, some of them taller than the teachers, they were the Senior Team.

We knew that some of them would go on to University, that they were working hard to get grades for A levels, were being ‘scouted’ for adult teams of the future, were failing sometimes, but in ways that still educated.

They looked like the future because they would leave for universities and colleges, apprenticeships and vocational training, the world of work, or just the world. As our sixth formers mature in a school, they become role models, ideally good ones, but they will be role models for good or ill.

They present a unique challenge for the teaching profession. These are young adults and require a different approach. For many of us the good fortune of having a good teacher in sixth form can unlock a future career.

As a teacher there is the satisfaction of seeing a shared joy in a subject that is a fascination for them.

Every teacher knows the feeling when a pupil achieves their goal and they have helped to make that happen.

Who wants to work in a school with no sixth form?

We will have schools that will be cut off at the head. The structure of our secondary education wasn’t arrived at by chance. There is a natural progression towards adulthood that takes place in the community that is a school.

There is a quality of teaching that will only find expression in a sixth form. So why is this happening in Pembrokeshire?

We are becoming a beleaguered county. Our hospital is being slowly but deliberately, dismantled. We are being threatened with having our sixth forms removed, our county council has spent far too much time headlining in the media for all the wrong reasons.

It cannot be beyond human ingenuity, even in these times of austerity, to come up with a better solution for our children, not least those who face the prospect of an interminable and sometimes literally nauseating journey to a distant college and back every day. We all know there is no money, but how does this decision to axe our sixth forms save it? Before we have our schools decapitated we must explore all available options and come up with a better plan, for the sake of our children.

Val Bradley

Prospective Green Party Candidate for West Carmarthen and South Pembrokeshire