St.John Fisher R.C. Primary School/ASD Resource Base Admissions Policy - School

St John Fisher is a Roman Catholic Primary School provided by the Diocese of Salford, and is maintained by the Tameside Local Education Authority as a Voluntary Aided School. The school’s Governing Body is the Admissions Authority. It is therefore the body responsible for taking decisions on applications for admission to the school. For the school year commencing September 2010, the Governing Body has set its planned Admission Number at 26.

Admission to the school will be made by the governing body subject to the following set of criteria which will be used to form an order of priority if there are more applications for admission than the school has places available.

1) Baptised Roman Catholic Children who are in public care.
2) Baptised Roman Catholic Children who will have a brother or sister attending the school at the time of admission and resident in the parish of St. John Fisher.
3) Baptised Roman Catholic Children who are resident in the parish of St. John Fisher.
4) Baptised Roman Catholic Children who will have a brother or sister attending the school at the time of admission and resident in another parish.
5) Baptised Roman Catholic Children resident in another parish.
6) Other children in public care.
7) Other Children who will have a brother or sister attending the school at the time of admission.
8) Other Children with preference being given to children living nearest to the school as measured in a straight line (see oversubscription below)

Children admitted for social medical reasons:
Within the above categories children may have additional priority for social and/or medical reasons. Evidence must be provided from a doctor or other agency that he/she has exceptional needs which means that admission to a particular school is essential; reference will normally be made to the Community Health Physician, Social Services or the Educational Psychologist as appropriate. A panel of governors of the school will make a decision as to whether to admit a child under this criteria using the evidence provided. All information provided will be treated in the strictest confidence.

Notes:

Definitions

Brother and sister
For the purposes of this policy, the words ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ include ‘stepbrothers’ and ‘stepsisters’ and foster children who live in the same household. 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, parents will be offered a choice of breaking the sibling link and being offered places at two or more schools or all siblings being offered a place at the same school which may not be a preference school named on the common application form.

Statement Pupils:
If, after appropriate consultation, our school is named in a statement of Special Educational Needs, the Governing Body has a duty to admit the child into the school.

Admittance of Children with a Statement for Autistic Spectrum Disorders
Note that arrangements for children with a statement for Autistic Disorders into the ASD Resource Base are separate from the mainstream schools admittance arrangements which this policy is solely addressing.

Waiting List
If the school is over subscribed, 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. 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. A significant change of circumstances, i.e. a change of address, will be taken into account: evidence of any such change of circumstance 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 first preference over any other children on the waiting list?

Distance/ Tie breaker
In the case of over subscription, distance criteria will apply in each category of priority as above. 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.
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 a person independent of the school. All the names will be entered into a hat and the required number of names will be drawn out.

Definition of Home Address
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 child benefit.

Class Size Limits:
The governors must comply with government regulations which limit all classes in Reception and Key Stage 1 to a maximum of 30 children. In some cases this may restrict admission to the school.

Attendance in Nursery and Admission to School:
Admission arrangements to the Reception Class in school are separate to those for the nursery. Attendance at the Nursery does not give a child any guarantee or priority when it comes to consideration by the governors of applications to the Reception Class.

Applications:
It is helpful if parents register their children for school as soon as possible but preferably before the age of 3, as this enables the governing body to strategically plan for the future. It must be stressed that early registration does not in itself, confer any priority in admission to school. Notification to parents who have applied for a place in school will be made available in the Spring Term prior to their child’s commencement of school in September.

Late Applications:
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. In the event of applications received after the closing date, the following will apply;
1) School Under-subscribed: as per the priority order as established in the admissions criteria.
2) School Over-subscribed: if a late application or applications extend the number of children applying beyond the admission number, reference will be made to the following: a) the priority order as established in the admissions criteria
b) The efficient and effective delivery of education to all the pupils.
c) Government regulation i.e. class size limits.

Publication of the Governors Admissions Policy
Parents are asked to read and confirm receipt of the Governors published admission policy. Any changes to the policy will be circulated to all applicants on file for subsequent years.

Changes in parish boundaries:
In the current climate it is likely that some or many parishes will be amalgamated. The schools may however continue to serve the original parish communities. For purposes of admission, reference will continue to be made to the original/existing parish boundaries.

Appeals:
If an application for admission has been turned down by the Governing Body, parents can appeal to an independent Appeals Panel. This appeal must be sent in writing to the Clerk to the Governing Body of the school. Parents will be allowed at least 10 school days from the date of notification of refusal. The date of notification will be 2 working days after posting by first class post. The parents must give their reasons for appealing in writing, and the decision of the Appeals Panel is binding on the Governors. Further details regarding appeals are available at the school.

In year transfers.
With effect from September 2010, Tameside MBC will co-ordinate all requests for in – year transfers (ie those other than the normal time of admission into Reception) for children resident in the Tameside area. This will include requests for places at voluntary –aided schools whether they are in Tameside or in another local authority. Requests for places at St John Fisher will be forwarded by Tameside MBC to governors, and considered by the governing body.

Admissions Policy Review:
The policy will be reviewed by the governing body on an annual basis. Details of the success rates of parents applying for a place at St. John Fisher School according to the criteria above will be published annually.

In the years 2007/2008 and 2008/2009, 100% of parents who sought admittance for their child to St John Fisher R. C. School’s Reception class as first preference, had their request accepted.

This policy was considered and approved by the governing body on 12th November 2008

Appendix 1: Procedures For Pupil Admittance Into The School

A) In the Autumn term, all parents who have expressed an interest in a school place will be sent a copy of the local authority primary admission booklet which gives details of the local authority co-ordinated admission arrangements. These are available from local authority offices, public libraries and primary schools. The booklet is usually available at the end of November or beginning of December.
B) Parents must complete a common application form and express three preferences for primary school admission. The closing date for applicants is indicated in the booklet. All applicants will be considered by the governors at the same time in a fair way according to the published criteria.
C) Parents will be officially informed of the governor’s decision by Tameside local authority, usually by the end of March. An offer of a place does not guarantee a place for brothers and sisters in subsequent years.
D) All applicants will be required to provide proof of address, by supplying 2 proofs from the following list: ‘Mortgage statement,’ ‘Tenancy Agreement or letter from the landlord,’ ‘Council Tax Statement’* ‘Council Tax Benefit Statement’* ‘TV Licence’* ‘Home Contents Insurance Certificate’* ‘Building Insurance Certificate’* ‘Recent Utility Bill’**( gas, electric, water, land line telephone bill, not a mobile telephone bill) ,letter from a solicitor confirming exchange of contracts on a house.**

* issued within the last 12 months

** issued within the last 3 months

Appendix 2:

For Roman Catholic Applicants:
Roman Catholic applicants will be required to produce evidence that the child has been baptised i.e. baptismal certificate or name of church and approximate date of baptism. It is better to forward a letter enclosing a stamped and addressed envelope for ease of reply from the parish of Baptism. We strongly urge Roman Catholic applicants whose children have been baptised outside the home parish, to contact the church of baptism and request a baptismal certificate before seeking the child’s admittance into school.
All parents of children baptised in the parish of St John Fisher are strongly urge to seek a Baptismal certificate at the time of their children’s Baptism and preferably before seeking the child’s admittance to school.

Please note that:

a) parents baptismal /denominational affiliation to Roman Catholicism has no status in determining admission priority order
b) parents/grandparents/relations history of attending St John Fisher school has no status in determining admission priority order.
Priority order is established as above by sole reference, as to whether the CHILD is Baptised Roman Catholic.

Admission priority order is totally related to the criteria above.