Willows Primary Academy
Consultation 2026/2027
2024/2025 & 2025/2026 pre academy conversion
Consultation on admission arrangements 2026/2027
PURPOSE OF THE CONSULTATION
Future Generation Trust wishes to formally consult with you regarding Willows Primary Academy’s oversubscription admission arrangements for 2026/2027.
We are only proposing to change the oversubscription admissions criteria. Your opinions are important to us and we are keen to receive your comments on the arrangements before they are formally approved.
This consultation exercise will run for a period of six weeks and it is important that you make your views known by 3pm on Friday 17 January 2025.
WILLOWS PRIMARY ACADEMY
- The Published Admission Number (PAN) is the number of Reception places offered to children starting their primary school education. Willows Primary Academy currently has a PAN of 60 for Reception and 26 FTE Nursery capacity.
- The proposed amendment to the Oversubscription Criteria is shown below. The oversubscription criteria is used to allocate places where the total number of preferences for admission to Nursery or Reception at a FGT Academy exceeds the Published Admission Number (PAN), then the following order of priority is proposed to be used to allocate the available places.
1) Children in care and children who ceased to be in care because they were adopted (or became subject to a child arrangements order or special guardianship order), including those children who appear (to the admission authority) to have been in state care outside England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted.
2) Children whose current exceptional circumstances satisfy both of the following tests:
Test 1: the child is distinguished from the great majority of other applicants either on their own medical grounds which requires regular and sustained medical treatment or by other extreme exceptional circumstances.
Medical grounds must be supported by a medical report (obtained by the applicant and provided at the point of application). This report must clearly justify, for health reasons only, why it is better for the child’s health to attend the preferred Academy’s Nursery or Reception rather than any other Nursery or Reception.
Exceptional circumstances must relate and be relevant to the preferred Nursery or Reception, and the individual child, i.e. the exceptional circumstances of the child, not the economic or social circumstances of the parent/carer. They should be supported by a recent professional’s report (obtained by the applicant and provided when the application is submitted), e.g. social worker.
This report must clearly explain why the child’s circumstances are exceptional and why it is considered best that they attend the preferred Academy’s Nursery or Reception rather than any other Nursery or Reception.
And
Test 2: the child would suffer hardship if they were unable to attend the preferred Nursery or Reception setting.
Hardship means severe suffering of any kind, not merely difficulty or inconvenience or mild to moderate emotional distress, which is likely to be experienced as a result of the child attending a different school. Applicants must provide detailed information (which may be included within the professional’s report) detailing both the type and severity of any likely hardship at the time of application.
3) Children who have an elder sibling in attendance at the preferred Academy and who will still be attending the Academy at the proposed admission date. (For the application to be prioritised under this criteria the children must be living at the same home address for the majority of the school week and either: have one or both natural parents in common; are related by a parents marriage; are adopted or fostered by a common parent or are unrelated children who live at the same address, whose parents live as partners.)
4) Children who have a parent who has been directly employed by the preferred Academy for more than two years and for a minimum of 0.5 FTE, or who have been recruited to fill a vacant post for which there has previously been a difficulty with recruitment or retention.
5) Children living within the defined catchment for the preferred Academy. (see Section 7 – Additional Notes)
6a) Nursery Applicants: Other children arranged in order of priority according to how near their home addresses (front door) are to the main gate of the preferred Academy, determined by a straight-line measurement as calculated utilising Google Maps.
6b) Reception Applicants: Other children arranged in order of priority according to how near their home addresses are to the main gate of the preferred Academy, determined by a straight-line measurement as calculated using the Local Authority’s Geographical Information System.
Note: only Priority 4 is amended from the previous criteria
HOW WOULD THE ACADEMY BE IMPROVED?
This proposed amendment to the oversubscription criteria would enable the academy to continue to recruit necessary teaching and support staff, by providing education for their own child/children’s education.
HOW DO I MAKE MY VIEWS KNOWN TO WILLOWS PRIMARY ACADEMY?
Anyone wishing to provide feedback on the proposals is requested to send their views by no later than 3pm on Friday 17 January 2025.