Admission Arrangements 2025-2026

Eden Academy Trust

 

 

School Admissions Arrangements for 2025/26

 Bluebell Meadow Primary School : Planned Admission Number: 45 per year group

 

APPROVED ADMISSIONS POLICY FOR 2025/26

In the first instance, places will be awarded to those pupils with an Education Health Care Plan (ECHP) where the school is the named provision.  The remaining places will be awarded in the following priority order:

1. Looked after children and children who were previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to adoption, child arrangements order, or special guardianship order^[1] including those who appear [to the admission authority] to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted.  A looked after child is a child who is (a) in the care of a local authority, or (b) bring 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). 
2. those children who have brothers or sisters who will be attending the school in September 2025;
3. those children who live in the school’s admission zone; 
4. those children who are distinguished from the great majority of other applicants whether on medical grounds or by other exceptional circumstances and who would suffer significant hardship if they were unable to attend the school;
5. those children who live closest to the school as determined by a straight line distance measurement; from the address point for the child’s home to the address point of the school, using the Local Authority’s computerised measuring system, with those living closer to the school receiving the higher priority

 Tiebreaker:  

If more children qualify under a particular criterion than there are places available, priority will be given to those children who live closest to the school (as described under criteria 5). Should it not be possible to separate two or more applications, for example two applicants who live at an equal distance from the school, the Local Authority’s computerised system will use random selection

Admission of Children below Compulsory School Age and Deferred Entry

A child is entitled to a full-time place in the September following their fourth birthday. A child’s parents may defer the date at which their child, below compulsory school age, is admitted to the school, until later in the school year but not beyond the point at which they reach compulsory school age, or beyond the beginning of the final term of the school year for which an offer was made. A child may take up a part-time place until later in the school year, but not beyond the point at which the child reaches compulsory school age. Upon receipt of the offer of a place a parent should notify the school in writing, as soon as possible, that they wish to either defer their child’s entry to the school or take up a part-time place.

Admission of Children outside their Normal Age Group

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.

Any such request should be made in writing to the headteacher of the school. The Local Governing Board 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 headteacher who has statutory responsibility for the internal organisation, management and control of the school, the Local Governing Committee will take into account the views of the parents and of appropriate medical and education professionals.

Summer Born Children

The parents of a summer born child, i.e. a child born between 1 April and 31 August, may request that the child be admitted out of their normal age group, to the reception class in the September following their fifth birthday and that that the child will remain in this cohort as they progress through school.

Parents who want to make this request should make an application for their child’s normal age group at the usual time. The application to the local authority should include this request and in addition it should be made in writing to the headteacher of the school. The local authority will liaise with the Local Governing Committee that 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 headteacher, who has statutory responsibility for the internal organisation, management and control of the school, the Local Governing Committee will take into account the views of the parents and of appropriate medical and education professionals.

Parents will be informed of the outcome of the request before primary national offer day.

If the request is agreed by the Local Governing Committee, the application for the normal age group may be withdrawn before a place is offered. If the request is refused, the parent must decide whether to accept the offer of a place for the normal age group, or to refuse it and make an in year application for admission to year one for the September following the child’s fifth birthday.

Where a parent’s request is agreed, they must make a new application as part of the main admissions round the following year.

One admission authority cannot be required to honour a decision made by another admission authority on admission out of the normal age group. Parents, therefore, should consider whether to request admission out of the normal year group at all their preference schools, rather than just their first preference schools.

Waiting Lists

In addition to their right of appeal, applicants will be offered the opportunity to be placed on a waiting list. This waiting list will be maintained in order of the oversubscription criteria set out below and not in the order in which applications are received or added to the list.  Waiting lists for admission will operate throughout the school year. The waiting list will be held open until the last day of the summer term. Inclusion on the school’s waiting list does not mean that a place will eventually become available.

Infant Class Size Regulations

Infant classes may not, by law, contain more than 30 pupils with a single qualified teacher (subject to the provisions in the School Admissions Code for ‘excepted children’). Parents do have a right of appeal in accordance with the infant class size regulations if the school is oversubscribed and their child is refused a place.

The Local Governing Body will, where logistically possible, admit twins and all siblings from multiple births where one of the children is the last child ranked within the school’s PAN.

In-Year Applications

An application can be made for a place for a child at any time outside the admission round and the child will be admitted where there are available places. Applications should be made by contacting the local authority admission team at School Admissions, Durham County Council.

Applications should be made by contacting the local authority admission team at School Admissions, Durham County Council. Durham Leadership Centre ,Enterprise Way, Spennymoor, DL16 6YP, on 03000265896 or by email at schooladmissions@durham.gov.uk

Where there are places available but more applications than places, the published oversubscription criteria will be applied.

If there are no places available, a request can be made that the child is added to the waiting list.

Right of Appeal

Where a parent has been notified that a place is not available for a child, every effort will be made by the local authority to help the parent to find a place in a suitable alternative school.  Parents who are refused a place have a statutory right of appeal.  Further details of the appeals process are available from the Local Authority’s School Admissions Team, School Admissions, Durham County Council. Durham Leadership Centre ,Enterprise Way, Spennymoor, DL16 6YP, on 03000265896 or by email at schooladmissions@durham.gov.uk

Fair Access Protocol

The school is committed to taking its fair share of children who are vulnerable and/or hard to place, as set out in locally agreed protocols. Accordingly, outside the normal admission round the Local Governing Committee is empowered to give absolute priority to a child where admission is requested under any local protocol that has been agreed by both the school and the Local Governing Committee for the current school year. The Local Governing Committee has this power, even when admitting the child would mean exceeding the published admission number (subject to the infant class size exceptions).

 

Nursery

For children attending the school’s nursery, application to the reception class of the school must be made in the normal way, to the home local authority. Attendance at the school’s nursery does not automatically guarantee that a place will be offered at the school. 

False evidence

The Local Governing Committee reserves the right to withdraw the offer of a place or, where a child is already attending the school, the place itself, where it is satisfied that the offer or place was obtained by deception.

This policy should be read in conjunction with the Local Authority’s admission guidance for parents.

 

NB: Exceptional social reasons do not, in the view of the Trust, include domestic inconvenience arising from parents’ work patterns, child-minding problems, separation from particular nursery/primary school friends.  Problems of this kind are widespread and cannot be classed as exceptional.  Medical reasons do not include temporary conditions.  They are permanent medical conditions which require special treatment available at the preferred school only.  Medical evidence must be provided and the Trust Board must be satisfied that the child would suffer to a significant degree if he/she went to any other school.