Entry guidelines

Admission criteria 
If there are more applications than places available, the criteria as listed below will be used to decide who will be offered a place.

  1. Children in public care - children who are in public care as defined in section 22 of the 1989 Children's Act (this includes foster children).
  2. Brother or sister who will still be attending the school at the time of admission.  The words brother and sister refer to all blood, half, foster, step and adoptive brothers and sisters (not cousins) who live at the same home address as the child. A sibling relationship does not apply when the older child(ren) will leave before the younger one starts school.
  3. Exceptional medical or social circumstances for the first preferred school. If you are claiming medical or social circumstances you must provide evidence of why your child should attend your preference school. Medical circumstances must be supported by a letter from a consultant. Social circumstances must be supported by a letter from social worker or other appropriate professional. This evidence must be attached to your application form.
  4. Distance from the child’s permanent home address to the preferred school. The distance from home to all community high schools is measured by straight line from a point in the property to the nearest gated entrance which is used by pupils to enter the school grounds.
    The measuring system is an integral part of the admissions software produced by Tribal Technology Ltd. It uses Ordnance Survey maps and is accurate to 1 metre.
    In the case of multi-occupancy buildings, eg - flats, priority will be given to the applicants whose door number is the lowest numerically and/or alphabetically, eg - 11B takes priority over 12A. 
    This does not mean that we will be able to allocate a place at the school nearest to your address. 

Under each criterion applicants will be prioritised in distance order. In the event that the distances are equal, the local authority will draw lots to determine who will be offered the place.

Any combination of two or more criteria gives higher priority than one criterion. For example, a brother/sister connection and agreed medical/ social circumstances would give priority over a brother/sister connection. If necessary priority between applicants will be determined by lot.

Twin, triplet or other children from multiple births
The local authority does not give priority under its admission criteria for these children, however, we will endeavour wherever possible not to separate them.

Children of newly appointed staff
After the published offer date, where there is a demonstrable skills shortage for a vacant post (independent evidence is required), the admission authority will place the children of a new appointee for the post in question at the top of the waiting list for places at the school.

Please also see high school admissions and applying for a year 7 school place.