St Mary’s CE Primary School Droylsden

Admissions to an Aided school are the responsibility of the Governors, in agreement with the Diocesan Board of Education and the Local Authority.

Admission Of Reception (Foundation 2) Children.

Children are admitted into the Foundation Two (Reception) age group of the Primary School in September of the school year in which the children become 5 years old.

If the school is oversubscribed, the Governors will allocate 30 Foundation Two places (our Published Admission Number) using the following criteria which are listed in priority order. These will then be sent to the authority who will then finalise the allocations and inform parents accordingly.
Governors have a duty to admit children with a statement of educational needs that name the school. Such children will be allocated places before the oversubscription criteria are applied.

Important:- The following oversubscription criteria should be read in conjunction with the additional notes below.

Places are allocated as a Church Aided Primary School, in the following order of priority:-

1. Children in public care, (Looked after children,)
2. Church attendance at St. Mary’s or St. John’s Church.
3. Children whose brother or sister will still be attending school from September 2010. This sibling criterion includes natural sisters/brothers; half and step sisters/brothers; adopted sisters/brothers; sisters/brothers of fostered children, and in each case must be living at the same address.
4. Church attendance at other Church of England Churches.
5. Attendance at other places of worship. Christian Churches should be members of “Churches Together in Britain.” either nationally or locally. Children with exceptional medical, special or social needs.
6. All other children: priority will be given to those pupils living nearest to school. (See Note 1)

Notes.

(1). Where oversubscription occurs in applying criteria 1-7, priority will be given to those pupils living nearest to school, using a straight line, as designated by Tameside Council. 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.

2. Attendance at Church or other places of worship, should be by at least one parent or guardian...
with a minimum period of twelve months prior to application to meet criteria (2), (4) or (5) immediately prior to the allocation of a place. The frequency of attendance should be at least once a month within that minimum period. A form to be completed by Minister or other Religious leader is available from the school office and from Tameside Council and should be used to support any application for these criteria, failure to complete the school supplementary form will mean that governors cannot give any priority to the applicant under faith criteria. This may disadvantage the applicant.'

3. With regard to criteria (3) with regard to Twins, Triplets etc where 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.

4. To meet criteria (6) 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, Education Psychologist or Social Services as appropriate.
A panel of governors 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.

5. For criteria (7) and (3 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 public place and will be 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.

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.
Appeals against refusal of admission.

Where the governors are unable to offer a place because the school is over subscribed, parents have the right to appeal to an independent admission appeal panel, set up under the School Standards and Framework Act, 1998, as amended by the Education Act, 2002. Parents will be advised by the local authority how and when they should submit their appeal. Parents will have the opportunity to submit their case to the panel in writing and also to attend in order to present their case. You will normally receive 14 days’ notice of the place and time of the hearing.

Waiting Lists

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 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.

Nursery Admissions

Admission decisions are made in consideration of the criteria. A child who has a place in our Nursery / Foundation One class must make a separate application for admission to the School, a place in the Nursery / Foundation One Class does not guarantee a place in the School.