St. Mary’s R. C. Primary and Nursery School, Denton

Admissions Policy 2010/11

St. Mary’s 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 primary school. The school’s governing body is the admissions authority and is responsible for taking decisions on applicant’s for admission. For the school year commencing 2010/11, the governing body’s planned admission number is 30.

Admission to the school will be made by the governing body in accordance to the following set of criteria which will be used to form a priority order if there are more applications for admission than the school has places available. The criteria need to be read in conjunction with the additional notes.

1. Baptised Roman Catholic children who are in public care.*
2. Baptised Roman Catholic children with exceptional social and medical needs.*
3. Baptised Roman Catholic children who will have a brother or sister attending the school at the time of admission and are resident in the parish of St. Mary’s.*
4. Baptised Roman Catholic children who are resident in the parish of St. Mary’s.*
5. Baptised Roman Catholic children who will have a brother or sister attending the school at the time of admission and are resident in the parishes of Holy Family, Denton and St. Paul’s, Guide Bridge.*
6. Baptised Roman Catholic children who are resident in the parishes of Holy Family, Denton and St. Paul’s, Guide Bridge.*
7. Other baptised Roman Catholic children who have a brother or sister attending St. Mary’s at the time of admission and are resident in another parish.*
8. Other baptised Roman Catholic children who are resident in another parish.*
9. Other children with exceptional social and medical needs.
10. Other children who are in public care.
11. Other children. Preference will be given to pupils living nearest to the school, measured as a straight line (see note 9). Where oversubscription occurs in applying any of criteria 1 to 10, priority will be given to those pupils living nearest the school, measured as a straight line (see note 9).

* Baptised at the time the Admissions Committee meet to consider the applications.

Additional Notes:

1. The governing body is the admissions authority. The admissions committee is comprised of the following governors: chair of governors, headteacher and two foundation governors.

2. 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 Admissions Booklet’ which gives details of the LA co-ordinated admissions arrangements. These are available from local authority offices, public libraries and primary schools.

3. Parents must complete a common application form and express three preferences for primary admission. The closing date for all applicants is to be confirmed. All applications that are received by the closing date will be considered by the governors at the same time in a fair way according to the published criteria. 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.

4. Parents will be informed of the governors’ decision by Tameside LA on **** (to be confirmed). An offer of a place does not guarantee a place for brothers and sisters in subsequent years.

5. Each Roman Catholic applicant will be required to produce a baptismal certificate.

6. Parents should check carefully whether they are resident within the parish boundaries of St. Mary’s. Maps illustrating parish boundaries are available from the Parish Priest.

7. Applicants must provide TWO proofs of address from the following list:

Mortgage Statement*
Tenancy agreement or letter from landlord*
Council Tax Statement*
Council Tax Benefit Statement*
TV licence*
Home contents insurance certificate*
Buildings insurance certificate*
Recent utility bill (gas, electricity, water, land-line telephone bill but 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
It is the duty of governors to comply with class size limits at Key Stage One. This means that the school cannot operate classes in Key Stage One of more than 30 children.

8. 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.

9. Distance will be measured as a straight line from the child’s home address, using the address point assigned by the National Land & 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 applications where this distance would be the last place/s to be allocated, a random lottery will be implemented between the applications 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.

10. The term sibling is taken to include step brothers and sisters, foster children and children of partners living 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 a 2 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.

11. Attendance in St Mary's Nursery (F1) does not guarantee a place in Reception (F2).

12. The governing body has a duty to admit children with a statement of special educational needs that name the school.

13. For children with exceptional social and/or medical needs, 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 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.

14. 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.

15. 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 governors at the school; parents will be allowed at least 10 school days from the date of notification that the application was unsuccessful to submit their appeal. 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.

16. 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 they become available, to the highest ranked application 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 by the local authority to admit must be given precedence over any other children on the waiting list.

This policy was considered and approved by the Admissions Committee on 7th May 2008.