The School Admissions Code of Practice 2013 gives parents the right to express a preference for their child to be admitted to any school maintained from public funds.
On allocation of school places the admission number is taken into consideration and if the number of applications received exceeds the number of places available the following oversubscription criteria will be applied. When applying the over-subscription criteria all parental preferences will be considered equally and allocated in line with the criteria below.
Admission numbers can be found in our Starting Schools Booklet 2019/20.
If your child has a Statement of Special Needs, the authority must admit the child concerned to the school specified on the statement.
If more than one preference can be met the highest preference school (as declared on the application form) will be offered.
- Looked After children, or previously looked after children. i.e. children who are or have previously been in the care of the local authority
- Children with exceptional medical circumstances, supported by a medical consultant’s report
- Children with brothers and sisters at the school at the date of admission
- Children residing within the preferred school’s catchment area will be given prior consideration over those children living outside the catchment area
- Should the school continue to be in a position of over subscription after applying points (1) to (4), priority will be based on closeness to the preferred school
Medical
If parents would like their child’s medical circumstances to be considered they will need to submit a medical consultants report (or another form of evidence). This would need to be submitted at the time of the application in order for these circumstances to be considered by the authority. It would need to give reasons why the preferred school is the only viable option.
Siblings (brother/sister)
Brothers and sisters whether full, half, step or foster will be considered if they are living together at the same address. However the older sibling will need to be registered at the school when the younger sibling starts. In considering allocations on the basis of siblings, priority will first be given to applications from multiple birth siblings.
Multiple birth siblings
If when applying the over-subscription criteria, the last child to be admitted is one of a multiple birth, then the Local Authority will admit the other sibling(s).
Catchment
Please be aware that whilst residing within the catchment area for your preferred school forms part of the over subscription criteria, it will not guarantee you a place.
You can check your catchment school via our website.
Catchment areas are subject to review.
Distance
The Local Authority will use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to calculate home to school distances. The GIS software adopted by the Local Authority for these purposes will be Routefinder and MapInfo desktop Solutions.
Determination of the shortest safe walking route will be calculated using official routes known to the Local Authority and Highways agencies. The starting point of the calculated route will be determined as being the nearest network point to the main entrance of the property. The main entrance of the home address is determined by the Local Authority to be where the property receives post. The finishing point of the calculated route will be determined as being the nearest official open gate adopted for use by the preferred School.
The coordinates of an applicant address will be determined using the Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) and Ordnance Survey Address base data.
Where a safe walking route cannot be determined for an applicant, the shortest driving route will be used for allocation purposes.