- Q.
Which school can your child attend?
A. The law says that the Local Authority
(LA) must give parents the chance to state their preference for the school they wish their child to attend. The law does
not give parents/carers an absolute right to "choose" the school
for their child.
It is important to find out the name of the
catchment area school for the home address of your child. Search
for your
catchment school by postcode or view all the schools in your
local area.
You may apply for other schools (other than the
catchment area school), including Academy, Foundation or Voluntary
Aided Schools
- Applications where a preference is
expressed on time will take precedence in relation to the school
over where a preference is expressed after the closing date. In
both of these instances they will have precedence over those where
no preference is expressed.
- You should give careful consideration to the
means by which your child will travel to school (see information
about School
Transport)
Parents should also note that if they gain
admission for a child to a Middle School of their preference,
(other than the catchment area school) it does not mean that
younger siblings will automatically gain admission to the same
school. Should the school be oversubscribed at the time of
application of a younger sibling, catchment area children have a
higher priority on the oversubscription criteria.
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- Q. How
do you apply for a place at a Middle School?
A. The parents of all pupils resident in Worcestershire,
including parents whose preference is for the catchment area school
for the child’s home address, seeking a place at any Middle School,
including any Academy, Foundation or Voluntary Aided School, and
any School outside Worcestershire, must complete a Worcestershire
LA Common Application Form (PA1), by the closing date.
Worcestershire parents are invited to state
three preferences on the Common Application Form. All
preferences are treated as equal initially, and the
oversubscription criteria applied to each preference. If it is
possible to make a potential offer at more than one school, then
the final offer will be the school ranked highest on the
application form.
Parents seeking a place at an Academy,
Foundation or Voluntary Aided School or schools outside
Worcestershire must:
- obtain from the school an admissions pack, including a
prospectus which will explain if you need to provide/complete
supplementary information/forms;
- complete a Common Application Form (PA1) naming your school
preferences and attach all relevant documentation as required with
your application i.e. copy of completed supplementary forms,
baptism certificate.
NB, if applying online you will
need to send any supplementary forms by post to the School
Admissions Team. Supplementary paperwork must be received by
the closing date for it to be considered with your
application. The postal address
is:
School Admissions and Transfers
Team
Children's Services Directorate
PO Box 73
Worcester
WR5 2YA
Parents are advised to ensure they
include their child's details and their name and address with any
correspondence sent.
You can apply for your school place online via
the link on the top right hand side of this
page.
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- Q. Why
do I have to put three preferences on the application form?
A. You are not required to use all three preferences,
however you should consider all schools in an area in case your
application for your higher preference schools are unsuccessful. If
the local authority cannot offer your child a place at your
preferred schools, you will be offered the nearest school to your
home address that has a place available.
By including three preferences, it helps the local authority
consider schools that you would find acceptable for your
child.
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- Q. My child currently lives
outside Worcestershire and would like a Worcestershire Middle
school place, what should I do?
A. You should apply to your child's home Local Authority,
regardless of which schools you are placing as a preference. If you
would like to express a preference for a Worcestershire Middle
school, you will need to add it as a preference on the Common
Application Form for your child's home Local Authority.
Please refer to the website of your home Local Authority for
information on their School Admission process and timescales.
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- Q.
When should you apply?
A. Places in Middle Schools are allocated on the basis of
applications received on or before the closing date of: 15th
January 2012
If your child currently attends a First school in
Worcestershire, you will receive in September 2011:
- Information about the transfer process
- A paper Common Application Form (PA1)
If your child is not attending a
Worcestershire school, and yet you live in Worcestershire, you must
apply on a Worcestershire form PA1, at the intake stage, for
Admissions to Middle School, under the National Co-ordinated
Admission Arrangements, even if your preferences include schools
within any other Local Authority.
Applications can be made online from
1st September 2011
You can apply for your school place
online via the link on the top right hand side of this
page.
Proof of application– It is
the parent/carers responsibility to ensure a receipt is obtained
when making an application. Please retain any receipt as
proof of application.
- Applications made online will receive a return receipt via
email once the application has been submitted.
- Paper application forms have a detachable receipt – see form
for details.
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- Q.
What if your application is late?
A. Between 16th January 2012 and
29th February 2012, it is likely that a number of late applications
will be received. The Council has agreed in it’s co-ordinated
scheme to accept late applications within this time-frame, and
treat them as being on time, only in the following
circumstances;
a) where a family have just moved address, (See
Section 8b - Living in a school catchment area explanatory
notes)
b) where it is agreed by the Directorate of
Children’s Services, that individual circumstances apply and the
delay was reasonable given the circumstances of the case;
In each case independent supporting documentary
evidence will need to be submitted with the application. In all
other circumstances, or if the application is not received until
after 29th February 2012, late applications will receive a lower
priority, and will only be considered after the applications
received (or deemed to be) on time.
NB. If the late application is for
an Academy, Foundation or Voluntary Aided School, or a school
outside Worcestershire, it will be necessary to refer to the late
application policy of the school or the LA, in whose area the
school is located.
If making an application after the start of the autumn term 2012
please see the in-year admission to middle school page.
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- Q. Who has responsibility for the
allocation of places?
A. If a school is oversubscribed (has more applications
than places), it will use admission criteria to decide who to offer
places to. Read them carefully for the schools you are interested
in.
For Community and Voluntary Controlled Schools, decisions are made
by the School Admissions and Transfers Section.
For Academy, Foundation or Voluntary Aided Schools decisions are
made by the governing bodies of the individual
schools. See the school admissions policies published on this
site.
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- Q. How are places
allocated?
A. The School Admissions and Transfers Section will send
details to its Academy, Foundation or Voluntary Aided Schools of
all applications received for that school, irrespective of ranking,
for initial consideration, and also to neighbouring
LAs, who will then apply their own oversubscription
criteria.
The School Admissions and Transfers Section
will then receive the outcome of these initial considerations, and
will compare against lists of potential offers at other schools
nominated on the application, to identify any pupils, who may
potentially be offered more than one place. If this is the case,
then the single offer will be the higher ranked school on the
application form.
If no place is available at your second or third preference
schools as well, or if you have not expressed a second/third
preference, the Home Local Authority will name an alternative
school with places available. This will normally be the nearest
school to where you live with available
places.
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- Q.
When are decisions made?
A. Offer letters will be posted on 23rd April 2012
via second class postage. They will be sent direct to
parents, by the School Admissions and Transfers Section, even if it
is on behalf of the governing body of an Academy, Foundation or
Voluntary Aided School, or a school in a neighbouring LA.
In the few cases where it may not be possible to
offer a place at any of the preferences nominated on the
application form, a place will be offered at the nearest school
with available places for pupils who live in Worcestershire.
For pupils not resident in Worcestershire, the offer or refusal
letters will be sent direct to parents by the home LA, even if it
is for a school in Worcestershire.
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- Q.
What happens if you are moving into a new area?
A. Where families with children of school age are moving
into a new area and wish to transfer their children to a different
school, parents should at the earliest opportunity either enquire
at schools in the area or contact the Local Authority School
Admissions and Transfers Section in the area. Please be
aware that some schools may well already be full at the time of
your application.
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- Q.
How many children may be admitted to each school?
A. The County Council has a duty to ensure the provision
of efficient education and the efficient use of resources. Schools
cannot be permitted to become overcrowded. The number of pupils
that may be admitted to a school in the relevant year group is
known as the Published Admission Number (PAN).
Details for each school are given in Section 5a of the Information
for Parents booklet.
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- Q.
How can my child be placed on a waiting list for a particular
school if the year group is full?
A. Waiting lists for Community and Voluntary Controlled
Schools, are maintained by the School Admissions and Transfers
Section, and parents need to apply, in order to be included. For
full details on how to apply please refer to Section 7.7 of the
Information for Parents Book.
Waiting lists are operated in line with the admissions criteria
as published in Section 7.3 of the Information for Parents Book.
Please refer to the relevant section for full details.
Waiting lists for Academy, Foundation and Voluntary
Aided Schools, are maintained by the individual schools
and parents will need to contact the school directly, in order to
be included.
You should be aware that a school waiting list
is an active document. As parents request for their children to be
included on the list the position of an individual child already on
the list can change. A waiting list does not give priority based
simply on the date an application was added to the list.
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