SIXTH form academic provision in Bolton is somewhat patchy. It is provided by a few high schools and Bolton Sixth Form College.

As a parent, it's hard to know where to send your teenager to be guaranteed of the best grades that will secure them a place at a good university, if that is what you are looking for.

Forty per cent of 16-year-olds travel outside of Bolton for sixth form provision, to Runshaw College in Leyland, Winstanley College in Wigan, and Pendleton College in Salford. That's a lot of families voting with their feet.

However, when you're a parent with a child who has done well at GCSE in Bolton, your instinct is to stay at the school which has served them so reliably.

But at that stage you might not realise that A-levels are quite a different matter, and they might be better served going to a sixth form college which offers exclusive, dedicated post-16 classes, and also serves as a halfway-house to the university experience of living independently.

These are lessons I have learned as a parent of teenagers who attended sixth form at a Bolton high school which achieves top class GCSEs.

So the news that the town centre sixth form college is building on its growing reputation as a solid post-16 provider with a multi million pound extension is welcome. Let's hope the quality building is matched by academic results which attract that 40 per cent back into their home town.