St Anne’s RC Primary and Nursery School Audenshaw

Admissions Policy 2010/11

St Anne’s is a Roman Catholic Primary School, provided by the Diocese and is maintained by Tameside Local Education Authority as a Voluntary Aided School. The school’s Governing Body is the admissions Authority and is responsible for taking decisions on applications for admissions.

For the school year commencing September 2010 the Governing Body has set its planned admission number at 30.

Admission to the school will be made by the Governing Body, subject to the following criteria, which will be used to form a priority order if there are more applications for admissions than the school has places available. The criteria below should be read in conjunction with the following notes.

1. Baptised Roman Catholic children who are in public care (Looked After Children)
2. Baptised Roman Catholic children, who will have a brother or a sister* attending the school at the time of admission and who are resident in the parishes of St Anne’s or St Paul’s.
3. Other Baptised Roman Catholic children who are resident in the parishes of St Anne or St Paul.
4. Other Baptised Roman Catholic children, resident in another parish, who will have a brother or a sister* attending the school at the time of admission.
5. Other Baptised Roman Catholic children, resident in another parish.
6. Other children who are in public care (looked after children).
7. Other children who will have a brother or a sister* attending the school at the time of admission.
8. Other children.

Notes

• All applications received by the closing date will be considered at the same time, in line with the Tameside Coordinated Admissions Scheme.
• Applications received after the closing date will be dealt with as late and will be considered after all applications received on time have been processed.
• Each Roman Catholic applicant will be required to produce a Baptismal Certificate.
• If there is a question over residency a map of parish boundaries is available in school.
• It is the duty of governors to comply with the class size initiative at Key Stage 1.
• If in any category there are more applications than places available, priority will be given on the basis of proximity to the school. 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 employs 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 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 public place 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.
• If your application to St Anne’s is unsuccessful you have the right of appeal to an Independent Appeal Panel. The appeal must be sent in writing to the Chair of Governors at the school. Parents must give their reasons for appealing in writing and the panel’s decision is binding on the governors. Further details on appeal are available from the headteacher.
• Admission arrangements to the Reception class are separate to those of the Nursery.
• Attendance at the Nursery does not give priority nor guarantee to admission to the school.
• If the school is oversubscribed the governors will maintain 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. Places will be offered, should any become available, to the highest ranked applications received by the date the place becomes available. If new or late applications 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 to admit must be given priority over any other children on the waiting list.
• The Governing Body has a duty to admit children with a statement of Special Educational Needs, where St Anne’s School is named.

• *For the purpose of our Admissions Policy the term “brother or sister” refers to:
  • blood brother or sister
  • step brother or sister living in the same household.

• Where twins, triplets or other multiple birth siblings, or other siblings whose date of birth falls within the same academic year, would be split when allocations take place, and there are too few places available at the school to accommodate them all, the governors will consult with the Local Authority and the parent to consider whether all the siblings can be offered a place at the same alternative school (which may not be a preference school named on the CAF) or whether the parents can be offered places at two or more schools with a view to the parent deciding which child will take up which offered place.