Admission Arrangements For Tameside Community High Schools
2010/11 Academic Year

Introduction

These arrangements apply to the admission of children to Tameside community high schools in the normal admissions round for the academic year 2010/11. Tameside will operate an equal preference scheme.

Applying For A Place In A Tameside Community High School September 2010

If you are a Tameside resident and your child attends a Tameside Primary School

You will receive an application pack from your child’s primary school in September. The pack will contain a ‘Moving On’ booklet, a personally addressed letter, outlining the admissions process to be followed, and a Common Application Form. The completed common application form should be returned to your child’s primary school who will forward it to Tameside Local Authority. You must apply to Tameside even if you wish to state a high school in another local authority as one of your preferred schools.

If you are a Tameside resident and your child attends a Primary School outside the Tameside local authority area

You will receive an application pack from Tameside in September 2009. The pack will contain a ‘Moving On’ booklet on secondary admissions, a personally addressed letter, outlining the admissions process to be followed and a Tameside Common Application Form. Application must be made to Tameside even if you wish to state a school in another local authority as one or more of your preferred schools.

If you live outside the Tameside local authority area and your child attends a Tameside Primary School

You will receive a copy of the Tameside ‘Moving On’ booklet in September 2009. You will also receive an application pack from your own local authority. The pack will contain your local authority’s booklet on secondary admissions, a personally addressed letter, outlining the admissions process to be followed and a copy of the Common Application Form (common application form) for the education authority where you live. Application must be made to your own local authority even if you wish to state a Tameside high school as one of your preferred schools.

If you live outside the Tameside local authority area and your child attends a Primary School outside the Tameside local authority area

You will receive an application pack from your own local authority, which will include information about applying to schools outside your own education authority. Copies of the ‘Moving On’ booklet can be obtained from Tameside local authority. Application forms need to be returned in accordance with your own local authority’s specific instructions and not to Tameside. Application must be made to your own local authority even if you wish to state a Tameside high school as one of your preferred schools.

NB: Each school application should be discussed with all parents and carers of the child, and only one application may be submitted for each child.

The local authority may verify information you provide on the form, which could involve contacting other departments of the local authority. In instances where the information provided is different from that held by them, they may use the information on this form to investigate further. If false or misleading information is given, Tameside local authority has the right to withdraw the offer of a school place.

The Process

• The Common Application Form will invite all parents to indicate a preference for 3 schools, and then to rank the schools in order of preference, giving reasons for each preference. In allocating places, Tameside will operate an equal preference scheme.
• Forms must be returned by the closing date of 16 October 2009, with any supporting information / evidence if appropriate.
• There will be a common timetable for all including a single notification date. Late applications will be dealt with as late and ranked after all applications received by the deadline.
• Changes to preferences, ranking order or pupil details, will not be allowed after the closing date of 16 October 2009 except in exceptional circumstances, for example, if the family has recently moved address. Evidence must be provided to support the request. An intention to change address cannot be considered by the local authority until the move has actually taken place and proof is available, or parents may provide a solicitor’s letter confirming an exchange of contracts on a property, or a tenancy agreement. No changes can be considered even where there are exceptional circumstances once information has been exchanged with the other admission bodies by the Council, because the allocations process has commenced. In the case of secondary schools this date is the 20 November 2009.
• Primary schools will forward all application forms (common application form) to the local authority who will collate them. Applications from outside the Tameside area will be forwarded to Tameside by the relevant local authority.
• Notification letters containing offers of a single school place will be sent out to parents on 1 March 2010 by their home local authority. This is common with all other local authorities nationally. These letters will also inform parents of their right of appeal, and who to contact, if an application has not been successful.
• Parents will not receive multiple offers.

Electronic Admissions By E-Mail

Parents with a working e-mail address have the opportunity to apply on-line. To access this facility log on to Tameside’s website (www.tameside.gov.uk), then under quick links click on ‘Admissions on-line.’ This will take you to the log on page where you will need to register before you can make an application. The local authority will send you a confirmation reply.

Each child will be issued with a unique identification number (UID) which you enter on-line along with your child’s date of birth in order to bring up your child’s details and application form. No one else will be able to access your child’s information.

Preferences can then be entered in ranked (priority) order. These may be changed at any time before the closing date of 16 October 2009. Parents can also opt to receive confirmation of their child’s school allocation by e-mail on 1 March 2010. Letters will additionally be sent by post.

Published Admission Numbers For Tameside Community High Schools

A list of all Tameside community high schools, with their respective Published Admission Numbers, is attached at Appendix 1.

Where applications for admission to any school exceed the number of places available, the following criteria (see also ‘Moving On’ booklet) will be applied, in the order set out below, to decide which children to admit.

Criteria For Allocating Places To Oversubscribed Schools

Children with statements of special educational needs where the school is named in the statement will be allocated places before the oversubscription criteria are applied. The criteria for over-subscription for community secondary schools are:

1. Children in Public Care (Looked After Children)

2. Children and families with exceptional medical or social needs

Written evidence must be provided by a suitably qualified professional – e.g. a GP or consultant for medical needs, or a social worker for social needs - that he/she has exceptional needs, which means that admission to a particular school is essential. A panel of officers from Tameside MBC will make a decision as to whether to admit a child under this criterion using the evidence provided. All information provided will be treated in the strictest confidence.

3. Sibling: this will apply where there are brothers or sisters attending the school at the time of application, who will still be attending at the time of admission, i.e. in the September when the pupil is admitted to Year 7. Preference will be given to pupils living nearest to the school.*

The sibling criterion includes; natural sisters/brothers; half sisters/brothers; step sisters/brothers; adopted sisters/brothers; sisters/brothers of fostered children, and in each case living at the same address. This allows for the admittance of children whose siblings will still be attending the preferred school. In cases where twins, triplets, other multiple birth siblings, or other siblings whose date of birth falls within the same academic year, are split when allocations take place, siblings will be offered a place at the same school which may not be a preference school named on the common application form.

4. Children attending Local Authority maintained primary schools in Tameside and pupils educated at home at the time of application. Preference will be given to pupils living nearest to the school.

When a parent has moved from further than ½ mile to an address within ½ mile of a Tameside Primary school, whilst their child is in Year 5 or 6, and they have chosen to keep their child at their current primary school, or where the child is educated at home and the address is within half a mile of a Tameside primary school, this will be considered as an exceptional circumstance under criterion 4, provided details are given on the special circumstances form together with satisfactory evidence of the house move.*

5. All other applications on distance. Preference will be given to pupils living nearest to the school.*

*Where oversubscription occurs in applying criterion 3, 4, or 5, distance will be measured as a straight line from the child’s home address, using the address point assigned by the National Land and Property Gazetteer, to the main gate to the school property. Measurements will be made using the local authority’s school admissions data mapping software, which uses a Geographical Information System based on Ordnance Survey.

The address from which distance will be measured will be the permanent residential address, at the time of application, of the parent with whom the child is normally resident. Where a child lives with parents with shared responsibility, each for part of a week, the home address is the address from which the child travels to school for the majority of school days per week. If the number of days is exactly equal the home address will be that of the parent who receives the Child Benefit.

In the event of distances being the same for 2 or more applicants where this distance would be the last place/s to be allocated, a random lottery will be implemented between the applicants where the distance is the same. The random lottery will be carried out in a place accessible to the public and supervised by someone independent of the school. All the names will be entered into a hat and the required number of names will be drawn out.

Waiting Lists

If any community high school is oversubscribed the local authority will operate a waiting list. The waiting list will operate until the end of the autumn term 2010 for those parents who have submitted an appeal or who have opted to go on the list. All pupils on the waiting list will be ranked according to the oversubscription criteria. The local authority will offer places, should any become available, to the highest ranked applications received by the date the place becomes available. If new or late applicants have a higher priority under the oversubscription criteria, they will be ranked higher than those who have been on the list for some time. A significant change of circumstances, such as a change of address, will be taken into account: evidence must be provided. Children who have been referred under the local authority’s Fair Access protocol or who are the subject of a direction by the local authority to admit must be given precedence over any other children on the waiting list.

Appeals

Any parent who is dissatisfied with their school allocation has the right of appeal to an Independent Appeals Panel. For pupils with a statement of Special Educational Needs, an appeal can be made to the SEN and Disability Tribunal (details are included in the Statement).

Parents, therefore, who wish to appeal against any decision of the local authority in refusing admission to a community high school, should do so by completing a School Admission Appeal Form, setting out clearly why your child should go to that particular school. Information about appeals will be sent out with the allocation letter. Forms can also be obtained from, and should be returned to, the School Admissions Section at Tameside MBC, Council Offices, Wellington Road, Ashton-under-Lyne, OL6 6DL.

The Appeals Panel will:

• be independent of the school and the LA;
• give the appellant, who may be accompanied by a friend or be represented, the opportunity to make oral representation;

The admission authority will:

• give the appellant at least fourteen days notice of the time and place of the hearing;

The clerk will:

• give the appellant at least seven days notice of any written representations made to it by the LA.

The appeal shall be decided by a simple majority of the votes cast, the chairman of the panel having a casting vote.

The decision of the Appeals Panel and the grounds on which it was made shall be communicated by the Clerk in writing to the appellant. That decision shall be binding on all parties. Subject to the above conditions, all matters of procedure shall be determined by the local authority.