The Friary School
Admission arrangements 2025/2026, 2024/2025, 2023/2024
This policy is designed to ensure there is an open and fair admissions procedure for all applicants and to help guide parents and their children through the application process.
The school’s admissions arrangements will not disadvantage unfairly, either directly or indirectly, a child from a particular social or racial group, or a child with a disability or special educational needs, and that other school policies do not discourage parents from applying for a place for their child.
This policy details the school’s arrangements for admissions and will apply to all admissions from September. This includes in-year admissions within this period.
Parents are encouraged to visit the school with their child if they are planning to apply for a place. We have a number of open days / tours during the year and these are widely publicised.
The School Trust will consult on the admissions arrangements at least once every seven years or if there are proposed changes to the admission arrangements which require consultation.
This policy will be reviewed annually or in the following circumstances:
- Changes in legislation and / or government guidance
- As a result of any other significant change or event
- As the result of a decision of the office of the Schools’ Adjudicator
Admissions arrangements will be set annually, this will happen even if there are no changes from previous years and a consultation is not required.
Published Admission Number (PAN)
The school has an agreed Published Admission Number (PAN) of 210 per year.
The application process begins on 1 September and in the normal round of admissions will be co-ordinated by Staffordshire County Council.
To apply you need to go via complete Staffordshire County Council’s admissions application process and all submissions must be sent directly to them by formal deadline of 31 October.
Criteria for Admission
All children with a Statement of Special Educational Needs or Disabilities, or with an Education, Health and Care Plan that specifies the school as the placement academy, will automatically be admitted.
Elsewhere, where applications for admission exceed the number of places available, the following criteria will be applied, in the order set out below
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 of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted.
2. Children who 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 or by other 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 academy rather than any other school.
Exceptional circumstances must relate to the school and the individual child; Ie - the circumstances of the child, not the economic or social circumstances of the parent/carer. They should be supported by a professional report (obtained by the applicant and provided at the point of application); Eg - social worker. This report must clearly justify why it is better for the child to attend The Friary School rather than any other school.
and
Test 2 - The child would suffer hardship if they were unable to attend the academy.
Hardship means severe suffering of any kind, not merely difficulty or inconvenience, which is likely to be experienced as a result of the child attending a different school. Applicants must provide detailed information about 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 academy and who will still be attending the school at the proposed admission date; (For admission purposes, a brother or sister is a child who lives at the same address 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 living within the catchment area of the academy.
5. Children of The Friary School employees in either or both of the following circumstances:
a) where the member of staff has been employed at the school for two or more years at the time at which the application for admission to the school is made, and/or;
b) where the member of staff is recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable skill shortage.
6. Children in attendance in Year 6 at the time of application are in a school which is a member of the Primitas Learning Partnership Trust; in this case only on roll at Henry Chadwick Primary School.
7. Other children arranged in order of priority according to how near their home addresses are to the main gate of the school, determined by a straight-line measurement as calculated by the local authority's geographical information system.
On occasions where it is not possible to accommodate all children applying for places within a particular category then the academy will allocate the available places in accordance with the remaining criteria; for example, if all the catchment area children cannot be accommodated, then children who are resident within the catchment area will be arranged in order of priority according to the remaining criteria.
Notes
Copies of school catchment area maps are available from Staffordshire County Council or the school.
Admissions for the normal age of entry are administered through a coordinated admission scheme and preferences for maintained schools will be processed centrally by the School Admissions and Transport Service at Staffordshire County Council. Each child will receive only one offer of a place at a Staffordshire school.
Children in care means children who are looked after by a Local Authority in accordance with section 22 (1) of the Children Act 1989 and who is (a) in care of a Local Authority, or (b) being provided with accommodation by a Local Authority in the exercise of their social services functions (see definition in Section 22 (1) of the Children Act 1989) at the time of making an application to a school. This includes children who were adopted under the Adoption Act 1976 (see section 12 adoption orders) and children who were adopted under Adoption and Children Act 2002 (see section 46 adoption orders).
Child arrangements orders are defined in s.8 of the Children Act 1989, as amended by s.12 of the Children and Families Act 2014. Child arrangements orders replace residence orders and any residence order in force prior to 22 April 2014 is deemed to be a child arrangements order.
Section 14A of the Children Act 1989 defines a special guardianship order as an order appointing one or more individuals to be a child’s special guardian (or special guardians).
It is the applicant’s responsibility to provide any supportive information required in order for the application to be assessed against the published admissions criteria, the school will not seek to obtain this information on behalf of the applicant.
The home address is considered to be the child’s along with the parent / carer’s main and genuine principal place of residence at the time of the allocation of places - where they normally and regularly live. If a child is resident with friends of relatives (for reasons other than legal guardianship) the friends of relatives address will not be considered for allocation purposes.
The only primary school in the Primitas Learning Partnership Trust which Point 6 in the admission criteria applies to is Henry Chadwick Primary School. This arrangement was agreed to under the school’s joint arrangements under the former Greywood Multi-Schools Trust which merged with the Primitas Learning Partnership Trust in September 2023.
Where parents have shared responsibility for a child, and the child lives with both parents for part of the school week, parents will be required to provide documentary evidence to support the address they wish to be considered for allocation purposes. It will then be for the school to decide on the address to be used for admission purposes.
The Local Authority uses a geographical information system (GIS) to calculate home to school distances in miles. The measurement is calculated using Ordnance Survey (OS) data from an applicant's home address to the main front gate of the school. The coordinates of an applicant's home address are determined and provided by the Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) and OS address point data.
It is expected that parents will agree on school places before an application is made, and it may be necessary to request evidence from you to confirm that this is the case. The school is not in a position to intervene in disputes between parents over school applications and will request that these are resolved privately.
If a child’s home address changes during the admissions process it is the responsibility of the parent / carer to inform Staffordshire County Council immediately. Where they is a proposed house move taking place during the admission process, the school will only accept the revised address for the purposes of allocation where parents / carers can provide documentary evidence of the move by 25 January. It will be necessary for sufficient evidence of a permanent move to be provided by the applicant by this date before it will be taken into account for allocation purposes at the national offer date.
If a place is offered on the basis of an address that is subsequently found to be different from the child’s normal and permanent home address at the time of allocation of places then that place is likely to be withdrawn.
If there are a limited number of spaces available and we cannot distinguish between applicants using the criteria listed, such as in the case of children who live in the same block of flats, then the child or children who will be offered the available spaces will be randomly selected. This process will be independently verified.
Admission Outside of the Normal Age Group
Parents may seek to apply for their child’s admission to school outside of their normal age group, for example if the child is exceptionally gifted and talented or has experienced problems such as ill health.
These parents will need to make an application alongside children applying at the normal age which should explain why it is in the child’s best interest to be admitted outside of their normal age which may include information such as professional evidence as to why this is the case and why an exception should be made in the case of the child.
A decision as to whether this is an appropriate course of action will be made by the Governing Body who will take into account the circumstances of the case and views of the Headteacher.
Parents do not have the right to insist that their child is admitted to a particular year group.
Waiting Lists
Unsuccessful applicants will be placed on a waiting list in accordance with the oversubscription criteria stated above and not based on the date their application was received.
There will be a period of two weeks after the national offer date whereby available places will not be reallocated.
If places become available after this date they will be offered according to the child at the top of the waiting list.
The waiting list will operate until the 31 December of the year of admission.
Inclusion on a school’s waiting list does not mean that a place will eventually become available at the school.
A child’s position on a waiting list is not fixed and is subject to change during the year; Ie - they can go up or down the list since each added child will require the list to be ranked again in line with the oversubscription criteria.
Children who are subject of a direction by Staffordshire County Council to admit or who are allocated to a school in accordance with the fair access protocol will take precedence over those on the waiting list.
Late Applications
Preferences received after the closing date will be considered alongside those applicants who applied on time wherever possible.
Where it is not practical, because places have already been allocated, or are shortly to be allocated, then late preferences will be considered only after those that were made before this point.
A late application does not affect the right of appeal or the right to be placed on a school’s waiting list.
Repeat Applications
Parents do not have the right to a second appeal in respect of the same school for the same academic year unless, in exceptional circumstances, the school has accepted a second application from the appellant because of a significant and material change in the circumstances of the parent, child or school but still refused admission.
In-Year Admission Arrangements
Parents or carers seeking to be admitted may make an application directly to the school using the appropriate application form which is obtainable via contact with school reception.
This application will be processed in line with the procedure outlined in the determined admission arrangements and parents and carers need to be aware that in the case of transfers between local schools, any date set for joining the academy may be after the next term or half-term holiday and those parents / carers are responsible for ensuring that their child continues to receive appropriate education in the interim.
Appeal Process
You have the right of appeal under the School Standards & Framework Act 1998 against the refusal of a place at any of the schools for which you have applied.
If you wish to appeal, you must contact the school, within a few days of receiving the refusal, to obtain the procedure and the date by which an appeal must be received by them. The appeal will be conducted by an independent appeal panel.
Fair Access Protocol
The school complies with Staffordshire County Council’s Fair Access Protocol to allocate places to vulnerable and other children in accordance with the School Admissions Code 2014.
Admitting pupils under the protocol may require the school to admit above the planned admission number for the relevant year group.
Students included in the Fair Access Protocol will take precedence over those held on the waiting list.