Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Primary School

Admission Policy and Arrangements

2027

Our Lady of Mount Carmel RC Primary and Nursery School is a Catholic School in the trusteeship of the Diocese of Salford.  It is maintained by Tameside and is a voluntary aided School.  The Governing Board is the Admissions Authority and is responsible for taking all decisions on applications for admissions.  The co-ordination of admissions arrangements is undertaken by the Local Authority.  

For the school’s year commencing September 2027, the Governing Body has determined that the number of children to be admitted to Reception will be 30.

The school’s role is to participate in the mission of the Catholic Church by providing a curriculum, including Catholic religious education and worship, which will help children to grow in their understanding of the Good News and in the practice of their faith.  The school will help the children develop fully as human beings and prepare them to undertake their responsibilities as Catholics in society.  The school requires all parents applying for a place here to understand and respect this ethos and its importance to the school community.  This does not affect the rights of parents who are not of the Catholic faith to apply for a place here.

Admissions to the school will be determined by the Governing Board.  Parents must complete a Local Authority Preference Form or apply online via the LA Admissions website. This opens on 1 November 2026 and will close on 15 January 2027. If you wish to have your application considered against the school's religious criteria, then you must ALSO complete the Supplementary Form which is available from the school by 15 January 2027. 

If there are fewer than 30 applications, all applicants will be offered places.  If there are more applications than the number of places available, the following oversubscription criteria will be applied: 

1. Baptised Catholic Looked After Children, Baptised Catholic previously Looked After Children and Looked After Children adopted from overseas.
2. Baptised Catholic children resident in the parish of Holy Cross and St Helen, Ashton (which falls within the Tameside Metropolitan Borough)
3. Baptised Catholic children who have a sibling in the school at the time of admission.
4. Other Baptised Catholic Children.
5. Looked After Children and previously Looked After Children. 
6. Other children who have a sibling in the school at the time of admission.
7. All remaining applicants.  

Pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan

Children with Education Health and Care Plans where Our Lady of Mount Carmel RC Primary school is specifically named in the plan (in accordance with the provisions of the SEN Code of Practice) will be allocated places before the oversubscription criteria are applied.

If it is not possible to offer places for all applications within any criterion above, priority will be given to those living closest 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 uses 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, the place will be allocated to the pupil that is nearer using walking distance as measured using the local authority’s school admissions data mapping software. In the event of 2 applicants competing for the final place, and both living exactly the same distance, then lots will be drawn to decide.

Notes for Applicants:

a.  All applications will be considered at the same time and after the closing date for admissions which is 15 January 2026.  Applications received after this date will be treated as a late application and will not be considered until after the main allocation of places has taken place.

b.  A Looked After Child is a child who is (a) in the care of a Local Authority, or (b) being provided with accommodation by a Local Authority in the exercise of their Social Services functions (under section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989.  A previously Looked After Child is one who immediately moved on from that status after becoming subject to an adoption, residence or special guardianship order.

c.  For a child to be considered as a Catholic evidence of a Catholic Baptism or reception into the Catholic Church is required.  Written evidence of reception into the Catholic Church can be obtained by referring to the Register of Receptions, or in some cases a sub-section of the Baptismal Registers of the Church in which the Rite of Reception took place.  If, for example, a child has been baptised in the Church of England and the parents are subsequently admitted to the Catholic Church through the RCIA programme, the child must also be admitted to the Church by the Rite of Reception.  

The Governing Board will require written evidence in the form of a Certificate of Reception before applications for school places can be considered for categories of ‘Baptised Catholics’. A Certificate of Reception is to include full name, date of birth, date of reception and parent(s) name(s).  The certificate must also show that it is copied from the records kept by the place of reception.

Those who have difficulty obtaining written evidence of baptism for a good reason, may still be considered as baptised Catholics but only after they have been referred to the parish priest who, after consulting with the Episcopal Vicar of Education or officers of the DDFE will decide how the question of baptism is to be resolved and how written evidence is to be produced in accordance with the law of the Church.

d.  Home Address is considered to be the address where the child normally lives.   Where care is split and a child moves between two addresses, the household in receipt of the child benefit would normally be the address used but the admission authority body reserves the right to request other evidence as fit the individual circumstance. Applicants should not state the address of another relative or person who has daily care of the child.  

e.  ‘Sibling’ is defined in these arrangements as full, half or step brothers and sisters, adopted and foster brothers and sisters who are living at the same address and are part of the same family unit.  This does not include cousins or other family relationships.

f.  A waiting list for children who have not been offered a place will be kept for the whole school year and will be ranked according to the Admission Criteria.  The waiting list does not consider the date the application was received, or the length of time a child's name has been on the waiting list. This means that a child's position on the list may change if another applicant is refused a place and their child has higher priority in the admissions criteria.

g.  For ‘In Year’ applications received outside the normal admissions round, if places are available, they will be offered to those who apply.  If there are places available but more applicants than places, then the published oversubscription criteria will be applied.

h.  If an application for admission has been turned down by the Governing Board, parents may appeal to an Independent Appeals Panel.  Parents must be allowed at least twenty school days from the date of notification that their application was unsuccessful to submit that appeal.   Parents must give reasons for appealing in writing and the decision of the Appeals Panel is binding on the Governors.

i.  The Governing Body reserve the right to withdraw the offer of a school place where false evidence is received in relation to the application.

j.  It is the duty of governors to comply with regulations on class size limits for children aged between rising five and seven.  The Governing Board may exceed the regulations for twins and children from multiple births where one of the children is the 30^th child admitted.   This also applies to in-year applicants who are Looked After/previously Looked After Children of UK service personnel or children who move into the area for whom there is no other school available within a reasonable distance.

k.  1.   Children are eligible for a Reception place from the beginning of the school year in which they become five years old. However, they do not become of compulsory school until the start of the term after their fifth birthday. The child’s parents can defer the date their child is admitted to the school until later in the school year but not beyond the point at which they reach compulsory school age and not beyond the beginning of the final term of the school year for which it was made. Parents can also request that their child attends on a part-time basis until the child reaches compulsory school age.

     2.   A request may be made for a child to be admitted outside of their normal age group, for example, if the child is gifted and talented or has experienced problems such as ill health. In addition, the parents of a summer born child, i.e. a child born between 1st April and 31st August, may request that the child be admitted out of their normal age group, to Reception rather than Year One. Any such request should be made in writing to Mrs Helen Hayes at Our Lady of Mount Carmel RC Primary School, Holden Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, OL6 9JJ at the same time as the admission application is made. The governing body will make its decision about the request based on the circumstances of each case and in the best interests of the child. In addition to taking into account the views of the head teacher, including the head teacher’s statutory responsibility for the internal organisation, management and control of the school, the governing body will take into account the views of the parents and of appropriate medical and education professionals, as appropriate.

l.  Parents may request that their child attend school part-time until he/she reaches    his/her fifth birthday.