Walton High School

Admission arrangements 2023/2024, 2024/2025 & 2025/2026

Walton High School is a member of the Walton Multi Academy Trust. As an academy, the Trust is the admission authority and has responsibility for setting the admission arrangements and for making decisions regarding admissions applications.

The admission arrangements for our school should be read in conjunction with the Primary and In-Year Co-ordinated Admissions Schemes and other agreed policies of Staffordshire County Council, the Local Authority (LA). All policies and procedures seek to comply with the requirements of the School Admissions Code 2014, the School Admissions Appeals Code 2012 and other relevant legislation.

Some admissions functions will be delivered by the School Admissions Service of Staffordshire County Council or other agent under a traded service agreement.

Our Ethos

Walton High School aims to provide an integrated comprehensive curriculum in an environment where teaching and learning are at the centre of everything we do.

We ask all parents applying for a place here to respect our ethos and its importance to the school community. This does not affect the right of parents to apply for and be considered for a place here.

Admissions to the School

Most of the children attending Walton High School join at secondary transfer, the beginning of Year 7. This is what is called the “normal point of entry” to a secondary school. We have another normal point of entry at the beginning of Year 12 when students can also join us in our sixth form.

Other children join us “in-year” at other times, once a year group has already started. This may be because they are new to the area and need a school place or simply would like to transfer from another school.

The need to apply

All parents must make an application for their child to be admitted to a state-funded school or academy. To apply for a place here you should use a Common Application Form provided by the local authority. Places are not allocated to a child automatically, even where:

• there is an older sibling attending here;
• a child attends a particular linked school;
• a parent has expressed an interest at any time in the school; or
• the child has always lived close to the school.

No places will be held in reserve for a child who applies late; the Trust cannot hold places empty if another child applies for admission. We will share information with the LA and will publicise the need to apply but the responsibility for making an application will be with you as the parent.

Visiting Walton High School

We welcome visits from parents and children who are considering applying for a place here. This is an opportunity for you to see what we have to offer. Visits are not a compulsory part of the admissions process and will not affect decisions on whether a place can be offered at our school. If you would like to visit Walton High School, you should contact the school to make an appointment. We hold an open evening for prospective new Year 7 children in the autumn term when they are in Year 6. If you are considering an in-year application, you are welcome to contact us and make an appointment to visit at any time.

How To Apply For A Place At The Normal Round – Year 7

The normal round of admissions is when children can join our school for the first time. So that all parents who wish to apply for a place in Year 7 can do so each LA across the country is required by law to co-ordinate applications for the schools and academies in its area. This means parents will receive one offer of a school place at the same time as other parents. For us, Staffordshire is the LA which co-ordinates applications which have been made either direct to Staffordshire or passed on by other LAs.

Every parent who wishes to apply or “express a preference” for a Year 7 place must use a Common Application Form from the LA where the child lives. For Staffordshire residents, this is available on the  Staffordshire County Council website.

If your child lives in another LA, you must apply by contacting that LA even though you are requesting a place here. The national closing date for applications for secondary transfer is: 31 October. You can apply after this date but your application may not be considered until after all of the applications that were on time. If you couldn’t apply before because, for instance, you moved to this area after October, you should make sure that you inform the LA. If the reason for applying after the closing date is accepted, your application will be considered at the same time as everyone who did apply on time if this is still possible.

If you know that you are going to move into the area during the Year 6 for your child, you can apply from where you are and provide evidence of the new address. You do not need to wait until you have actually moved if this is after the offer of places on 1 March.

What happens next?

If there are fewer applications than places then no application will be refused. Only if there are more applications than there are places available will the school prioritise applications according to the oversubscription criteria below. We may delegate this process to the LA or other agent but they will use our oversubscription criteria and we will remain responsible.

You will be able to make a preference for one, two or three schools. If you do name more than one school, it is important that you name them in the order you would like a place.

The LA co-ordinates Walton High School Admissions Policy 2025-26. 

Admission arrangements for Walton High School 

A parent could be in a position to be offered a place at more than one school. If that happens, a place will only be offered at the school which the parent preferred the most on the Common Application Form. The home LA will write (or email if the application was online) on 1 March to advise which school place has been allocated.

Shortly afterwards, we will also contact successful parents to welcome them to the school and to make arrangements for admission itself. Every parent who makes an application for admission will be offered a school place by the LA – either at a school they have named or at an alternative.

Information provided in an application

We would like all applications to be fully and honestly completed. It is important that where we offer places to some and refuse others we do so fairly and consistently. Where we have reason to believe that information is false and has been provided knowingly we may withdraw the offer of a place. This is particularly relevant where an address is given which is not the one from which a child will actually attend school and this disadvantages another child. If necessary, we will ask for evidence of a child’s home address before admission.

If you know or believe that your child’s address will change before admission, you must inform the LA or the School as this may affect your application.

Published Admission Number - PAN

This is the number of places we intend to make available for our normal intake. Once we set this number, we will not refuse admission for applications below the PAN. If there is unexpectedly high demand and we believe we could admit more children, we will inform Staffordshire LA and either some children will be admitted above the PAN or we will increase the PAN.

The Year 7 PAN is 210.

For other Year Groups, the agreed admission limit will be the PAN which was determined for that cohort as it entered the School in Year 7 unless varied in response to a change in circumstances at the School. For further information, please contact the School or the School Admissions Service.

Admission Arrangements for Walton High School 

Although parents have the right to express a preference for the school that they wish their child to attend, there is no guarantee of a place being offered at Walton High School.

It is Walton High School’s policy to try and meet parents’ wishes where possible, however in some cases there may be more applications than there are places available. Admission is determined by the oversubscription criteria detailed below.

Admission to Walton High School is determined by the oversubscription criteria given below.

Oversubscription Criteria

If the total number of preferences for admission to a school exceeds the school’s Published Admission Number (PAN), the following order of priority is used to allocate the available places. (N.B., after applying the oversubscription criteria, where an applicant can be offered a place at more than one preferred school then they will be offered a place at the school ranked highest on their application.)

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 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 preferred school 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 economic or social circumstances of the parent/carer. It should be supported by a professional report (obtained by the applicant and provided at the point of application), e.g. social worker. This report must clearly justify why it is better for the child to attend the preferred school rather than any other school.

Test 2: the child would suffer hardship if they were unable to attend the preferred school.

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 preferred school 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 preferred school

5) Children who attend certain primary schools defined as major contributory primary schools. (See Additional Notes below.)

6) Children of staff who are employed at the school

Definition of Terms

“Staff will include all those who are permanently employed directly by the school. At the start of the academic year 2019 staff will need to be employed for 2 years or more at the time when the application for admission to the school is made and/or the member of staff is recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is demonstrable skill shortage. This is set out in paragraph 1.39 of the School Admissions Code (Dec 2014). Staff does not include contractors or peripatetic teachers”.

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.

Where it is not possible to accommodate all children applying for places within a particular category then the Local Authority will allocate the available places in accordance with the remaining criteria. If for instance, all the catchment area children cannot be accommodated at a school, children who are resident within the catchment area will be arranged in order of priority according to distance i.e. category (6).

Additional Notes

Copies of school catchment area maps are available from the Local Authority or individual schools.

There is no charge or cost related to the admission of a child to a school.

Admissions are administered through a coordinated admission scheme and preferences for community, controlled, aided and foundation schools will be processed centrally by the School Admissions and Transport Service. Each pupil will receive one offer of a place at a maintained school.

In accordance with legislation, children who have a statutory statement of special educational need or an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) that names a particular school as being the most appropriate to meet the child’s needs must be admitted to that school. This will reduce the amount of places available to other applicants.

Children in Care means children who are in the care of, or provided with accommodation by a local authority in accordance with section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989 at the time of making the application..

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 Local Authority will not seek to obtain this information of behalf of the applicant.

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 is determined and provided by the Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) and OS Address Point data.

The home address is considered to be the child’s along with their parent’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 relatives 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.

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 local authority 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 the Local Authority immediately. Where there is a proposed house move taking place during the admissions process the Local Authority will only accept the revised address for purposes of allocation where parents/carers can provide documentary evidence of the move by 31 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.

Any Staffordshire child not obtaining a place at any of their parents preferred schools will be allocated a place at their catchment area school (if places remain available) or the next nearest school with a space available and advised about the independent appeals process.

Category (5), major contributory schools, can only be used by prior agreement with the Local Admission Forum and are relevant to the following schools:

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.

Waiting lists will be kept until the end of the autumn term of admission. No other waiting lists will be maintained.

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 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 a local authority 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 practicable 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 local authority 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. 

How to apply for a place at other times – In Year Admissions 

Parents applying should use an In-year Admission form from Staffordshire, regardless of where the child lives.  This is available at admissions@staffordshire.gov.uk