Chadsmead Primary Academy
Admission arrangements 2027/2028, 2026/2027,2025/2026
1. Aims
This policy aims to:
- Explain how to apply for a place at the school including nursery
- Set out the school’s arrangements for allocating places to the pupils who apply
- Explain how to appeal against a decision not to offer your child a place
2. Legislation and statutory requirements
This policy is based on the following advice from the Department for Education (DfE):
As an academy, the school is required by its funding agreement to comply with these codes, and with the law relating to admissions as set out in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998.
3. How to apply for a Nursery place
For applications in the normal admissions round you should use the application form provided by Chadsmead Primary Academy.
Children can be admitted in the term after they turn 2 or 3 years old. We run a cycle of 3 term admissions; September, January and April.
It is Chadsmead Primary Academy’s policy to try and meet parent/carer wishes where possible, however in some cases there may be more applications for a particular intake than there are places. Admission to Nursery will be determined by the school oversubscription criteria detailed in 6.2.
The closing date for nursery applications will generally be the last Friday before the end of every half term, for a start date of the following term.
4. How to apply for a Reception place
For applications in the normal admissions round you should use the application form provided by Staffordshire County Council.
You will receive an offer for a school place directly from your local authority.
Please note, pupils already attending our nursery will not transfer automatically into the main school. A separate application must be made for a place in reception.
5. Requests for admission outside the normal age group
Parents are entitled to request a place for their child outside their normal age group.
Decisions on requests for admission outside the normal age group will be made on the basis of the circumstances of each case and in the best interests of the child concerned. In accordance with the School Admissions Code, this will include taking account of:
- Parents’ views
- Information about the child’s academic, social and emotional development
- Where relevant, their medical history and the views of a medical professional
- Whether they have previously been educated out of their normal age group
- Whether they may naturally have fallen into a lower age group if it were not for being born prematurely
- The headteacher’s views
Parents will always be informed of the reasons for any decision on the year group a child should be admitted to. Parents do not have a right to appeal if they are offered a place at the school but it is not in their preferred age group.
6. Allocation of places
6.1 Admission number
Our two-year-old unit admission number is 20. The school has an agreed admission number of 52 places taking the 15 hour option for nursery. There are 30 places in reception.
6.2 Oversubscription criteria
All children whose education, health and care (EHC) plans name the school will be admitted before any other places are allocated.
If the school is not oversubscribed, all applicants will be offered a place.
In the event that the school receives more applications than the number of places it has available, places will be given to those children who meet any of the criteria set out below, in order until all places are filled.
- 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.
- Children who have an elder brother or sister in attendance at the Academy and who will still be attending the school at the time of the proposed admission date. (For admission purposes, a brother or sister is a child who lives at the main address provided and either: have one or both biological 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 main address, whose parents live as partners.)
- Children living within the defined catchment area of the Academy.
- Children who satisfy both of the following tests:
- The child is distinguished from the great majority of other applicants either on their own individual 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 Chadsmead Primary Academy rather than any other school.
Exceptional circumstances must relate to the choice of school and the individual child, i.e. the circumstances of the child, not the specific economic or social circumstances of the parent/carer, and be supported by a professional report (obtained by the applicant and provided at the point of application), e.g. social worker, justifying why it is better for the child to attend Chadsmead Primary Academy rather than any other school.
and
- The child would suffer hardship if they were unable to attend the Chadsmead Primary 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.
- 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.
Additional Notes
Copies of school catchment area maps are available on request to the local authority.
There is no charge or cost related to the admission of a child to a school.
In accordance with legislation, children who have an Education, Health and Care Plan that names Chadsmead Primary Academy will be admitted to our school setting. This may reduce the amount of places available to other applicants.
Relevant Children in Care means children who are in the care of a local authority in accordance with section 22 of the Children Act 1989(b) and who (a) are looked after at the time an application is made and (b) in relation to whom the local authority has confirmed that the children will still be looked after at the time when the child will be admitted to school. It has also recently been extended to include those previously determined as Looked After Children. (That is, children who were looked after but ceased to be so because they were adopted (or became subject to a residence order or special guardianship order).
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, Chadsmead Primary Academy will not seek to obtain this information on behalf of the applicant.
The home address is considered to be the child’s along with their parent/carer’s main and genuine principal place of residence at the time of the allocation of places i.e. where they are normally and regularly living. If a child is resident with friends or relatives (for reasons other than legal guardianship) the friends or relative’s address will not be considered for allocation purposes.
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.
The requirement for Chadsmead Primary Academy to meet the nationally determined Infant Class Size legislation, may result in the refusal of catchment area or sibling applications, where a class has already reached its limit of 30 pupils. However, where meeting the requirements of infant class size legislation will result in the separation of twins or siblings from multiple births Chadsmead Primary Academy will give careful consideration to exceeding the published admission number.
If there are a limited number of spaces available and we cannot distinguish between applicants using the criteria listed, then the child or children who will be offered the available spaces will be randomly selected by drawing lots.
6.3 Deferred Entry to Reception Year
Where children below compulsory school age are offered a place at the school, they will be entitled to attend the school full-time in the September following their fourth birthday.
Parents may defer their child’s entry to the school until later in the school year but not beyond the point at which the child reaches compulsory school age, and not beyond the beginning of the final term of the school year the offer was made for. The effect is that the place will be held for the child in Reception and is not available to be offered to any other child within the same academic year in which it has been offered.
Where the parents wish, children may attend part-time until later in the school year but not beyond the point at which they reach compulsory school age.
Before deciding whether to defer their child’s entry to school, parents should visit school to clarify how the youngest children in Reception are catered for and how the needs of these children are met as they move up through the school.
6.4 Fair Access Protocol
We participate in Staffordshire’s Fair Access Protocol. This helps ensure that all children, including those who are unplaced and vulnerable, or having difficulty in securing a school place in-year, get access to a school place as quickly as possible.
6.5 Waiting Lists
Unsuccessful applicants will be placed on a waiting list in accordance with the oversubscription criteria stated in 6.2. If places become available after the offer date they will be offered according to the child at the top of the waiting list.
Waiting Lists will be kept until 31 December. No other waiting lists will be maintained. Inclusion on ChadsmeadPrimaryAcademy’s waiting list does not mean that a place will eventually become available.
A child’s position on the waiting list is not fixed and is subject to change during the year i.e. they can go up or down the list. Children who are subject of a direction by a local authority to admit or who are allocated to Chadsmead Primary Academy, in accordance with the Fair Access Protocol, will take precedence over those on the waiting list.
7. In-year admissions
Parents can apply for a place for their child at any time outside the normal admissions round. As is the case in the normal admissions round, all children whose EHC plans name the school will be admitted.
Likewise, if there are spaces available in the year group you are applying for, your child will be offered a place.
If there are no spaces available at the time of your application, your child’s name will be added to a waiting list for the relevant year group. When a space becomes available, it will be filled by one of the pupils on the waiting list in accordance with the oversubscription criteria listed in section 6.2 of this policy. Priority will not be given to children on the basis that they have been on the waiting list the longest. Inclusion on a school’s waiting list does not mean that a place will eventually become available at the preferred school. A child’s position on a waiting list is not fixed and is subject to change during the year, i.e. they can go up or down the list.
Applications forms for in-year admissions are available from our In-year school admissions webpage.
Parents will be notified of the outcome of your in-year application in writing within 15 school days.
8. Appeals
If your child’s application for a place at the school is unsuccessful, you will be informed why admission was refused and given information about the process for hearing appeals. Parent/carer has the right to lodge an appeal to be heard by an Independent Appeals Panel.
There is no statutory right of appeal for admission to a nursery setting. Any disputes over the administration of the policy will be dealt with by the Trust complaints procedure. This can be found on our website under Our School / Policies / CAT Complaints Policy.
9. Monitoring arrangements
This policy will be reviewed and approved by the School Standards Committee every year.
Whenever changes to admission arrangements are proposed (except where the change is an increase to the agreed admission number), the governing board will publicly consult on these changes. If nothing changes, it will publicly consult on the school’s admission arrangements at least once every 7 years.