Admissions Policy

Aims

This Policy aims to:

• Explain how to apply for a place at Crags Community School;
• Set out the arrangements for allocating places to the pupils who apply;
• Explain how to appeal against a decision not to offer your child a place

Legislation and statutory requirements

This policy is based on the following statutory guidance from the Department for Education

• School Admissions Code
• School Admissions Appeals Code

We are required by out funding agreement to comply with these codes, and with the law relating to admissions as set out in the School Standards and Framework Act.

This policy complies with out funding agreement and articles of association.

Definitions

The normal admissions round is the period during which poarents can apply for state funded school places at a school's normal point of entry, using the common application form provided by their home local authority.

Looked after children are children who, aty the time of making an application to a school, are:

• In the care of a local authority; or
• Being provided with accommodation by a local authority in exercise of its social services functions.

Previously looked after childre who were looked after, but ceased to be so because they:

• Were adopted under the Adoption Act 1976 or the Adoption and Children Act; or
• Became subject to a child arrangement order;
• Became subject to a special gaurdianship order; or 
• Have been in state care outside of England - definded as a childre who has been in the care of or accomodated by a public authority, a religious organisation, or any other provider of care whose sole or main purpose is to benefit society.

A child reaches compulsory school age on the prescribed day following their 5th birthday (or on their 5th birthday if it falls on a prescribed day). The prescribed days are 31st December , 31st March and 31st August.

How to apply 

For applications in the normal admissions round you should use the application form provided by your home local authority (regardless of which local authority the schools are in). You can use this form to express your preference for a minimum of 3 state-funded schools, in rank order.

You will receive an offer for a school place directly from your local authority.

The offer of a single place to a parent/carer will be made on offer day, provided that the application has been received within the appropriate time frame.

Please note, pupils already attending nursery provision at Crags will not transfer automatically into reception. A separate application to the home local authority must be made for a place in reception.

Requests for places in pre-school (2/3 year provision) are also made directly to the school. 2 and 3 Year Early Education Entitlement (EEF) places are available from the term after a child's 2nd birthday. Funding codes for eligible children are obtained from the family information service via an online application or by telephoning. A place can be requested once a code has been issued. School can also offer a paid place if available.

Applications for admission to Foundation One (Nursery) are made directly to the school. All families are eligible for a funded 15 hour place and children will be allocated a part-time F1 (Nursery) place in the September following their Page 3 of 7 3rd birthday. Places are allocated in order of being placed on the list and subject to available space.

The admission of pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan is dealt with by a completely separate procedure. Notification of a school place will be issued via the EHCP process.

Children with an EHCP that names the school must be admitted. Where this takes place before the allocation of places under these arrangements this will reduce the number of places available to other children.

Requests for admission outside the normal age group

Parents are entitled to request a place for their child outside of their normal age group. You should use the application form provided by your home local authority (regardless of which local authority the schools are in)

Decisions on requests for admission outside the normal age group will be made on the basis of the circumstances of each case and in the best interests of the child concerned. In accordance with the School Admissions Code, this will include taking account of:

• Parents' views;
• Information about the child's academic, social and emotional development;
• Where relevant, their medical history and the views of a medical professional;
• Whether they have previously been educated out of their normal age group;
• Whether they may naturally have fallen into a lower age group if it were not for being born prematurely;
• Headteachers’ views.

Wherever possible, requests for admission outside a child’s normal age group will be processed as part of the main admissions round. They will be considered on the basis of the admission arrangements laid out in this policy, including the oversubscription criteria listed in section 6. Applications will not be treated Page 4 of 7 as a lower priority if parents have made a request for a child to be admitted outside the normal age group.

Parents will always be informed of the reasons for any decision on the year group a child should be admitted to. Parents do not have a right to appeal if they are offered a place but it is not in their preferred age group.

Allocation of places

Crags Community School published admission number (PAN) for entry is 45.

A school must have an admission number for each ‘relevant age group’, defined in law as ‘an age group in which pupils are or will normally be admitted to the school in question’. The admission number for each year group is set with regard to the capacity assessment for the school taking into account the nature and type of the school buildings and provides for an acceptable amount of space for each pupil. Therefore, the admission number is set to benefit the children who are taught in the school and those who teach.

Where this results in places in excess of the admission number being available, places are offered strictly in criteria order.

Any parent(s)/carers whose child is not offered a primary school place for which they have applied has the right of appeal to an independent appeals panel.

Oversubscription criteria

The following criteria apply to all of the schools in Nexus MAT:

• All children whose education, health and care (EHC) plan names an academy will be admitted before any other places are allocated.

In the event that Crags Community School receives more applications than the number of places available, places will be given to those children who meet any of the criteria set out below, in order, until all places are filled.

Highest priority will be given to a 'looked after child' or a child who was previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became Page 5 of 7 subject to an adoption, child arrangements, or special guardianship order (see section 3 above). 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 (see the definition in Section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989).

Priority will next be given to children with a sibling attending the school at the time of application (excluding nursery). Sibling is defined in these arrangements as children who live as brother or sister in the same house, including natural brothers or sisters, adopted siblings, stepbrothers or sisters and foster brothers and sisters.

Other children by distance from the school, with priority for admission given to children who live nearest to the school as measured by using Ordnance Survey data to plot an address in this system. Distances are measured as part of Rotherham Council’s processes using geographical information systems and “seed points” for each address from Ordnance Survey.

Tie break - In the case of 2 or more applications that cannot be separated by the oversubscription criteria outlined above, we will use the distance between the school and a child’s home as a tie breaker to decide between applicants. Priority will be given to children who live closest to the school.

Distance will be measured in a straight line from the child’s home address to the school’s front gates. A child’s home address will be considered to be where they are resident for the majority of nights in a normal school week.

Where the distance between 2 or more children’s homes and the school is the same, random allocation will be used to decide between them. This process will be independently verified.

The random allocation process is the drawing of random sealed envelopes with name of one child per envelope.

Children below compulsory school age (optional)

Where children below compulsory school age are offered a place at Crags community school, they will be entitled to attend the school full-time in the September following their 4th birthday.

Parents may defer their child’s entry to the school until later in the school year but not beyond the point at which the child reaches compulsory school age, and not beyond the beginning of the final term of the school year the offer was made for.

Where the parents wish, children may attend part-time until later in the school year but not beyond the point at which they reach compulsory school age.

In-year admissions

You can apply for a place for your child at any time outside the normal admissions round, via Rotherham Council, whom the Trust commission to manage the admissions arrangement for Crags Community School. In-year transfer application forms are available at www.rotherham.gov.uk. As is the case in the normal admissions round, all children whose EHC plan names Crags Community School will be admitted to that school.

If there are no spaces available at the time of your application (i.e. where the admission of another child would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources based on our staffing and curriculum model of 30 children in a class and each year group having two classes), your child’s name will be added to a waiting list for the relevant year group at the school. When a space becomes available it will be filled by one of the pupils on the waiting list in accordance with the oversubscription criteria listed in section 7 of this policy.

Once an in-year transfer application is received by Rotherham Council we (the school) will have 15 school days to consider that application. The Council will then contact you promptly to confirm the outcome.

Appeal

If your child’s application for a place at Crags Community School is unsuccessful, you will be informed why admission was refused and given information about the process for hearing appeals. If you wish to appeal, you Page 7 of 7 must set out the grounds for your appeal in writing and send it to the following address:

The Admissions Team
Children & Young People’s Services
Riverside House, (Wing 2C),
Main Street
Rotherham. S60 1AE
Tel. 01709 823777

You can find details of the trust’s appeals timetable on the following webpage: School admission appeals – Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

Monitoring arrangements

This policy will be reviewed and approved by the Trust Board every year.

Whenever changes to the admission arrangements are proposed (except where the change is an increase to the PAN or where the change is a mandatory requirement of the School Admissions Code), the board of trustees will publicly consult on these changes.

The board of trustees will consult on the admission arrangements at least once every 7 years, even if there have been no changes during that period.