Admissions

Admission Arrangements 2022

Admissions to community and voluntary controlled schools are the responsibility of Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council. The closing date for admission applications to the Local Authority is 15th January 2023.

If you would like your child to attend our school, please see full details of our admission arrangements below.

Admission policy for community and voluntary controlled infant and primary schools

Children with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) or a Statement of Special Educational Needs naming the school will be admitted first.

If the demand for places at a school is greater than the number of places available, all applicants who have named this school as a 1st, 2nd or 3rd preference will be considered equally against the Council’s admission policy, in the priority order given below:

a) ‘Looked after’ children and children who were previously ‘looked after’ but immediately after being looked after were adopted or became subject to a residence/child arrangement or special guardianship order. ‘Looked after’ means that the child was (a) in the care of a local authority, or (b) being provided with accommodation by a local authority in the exercise of their social services functions.

b) Children with an older sibling (sibling means a brother or sister, half brother or sister, adopted brother or sister, step brother or sister, or the child of the parent/ carer’s partner, and in every case, the child should be living in the same family unit at the same address) but not cousins, who will still be attending the preferred school when the younger child is admitted;

c) Children with proven exceptional medical, social or welfare needs which are directly relevant to the school concerned. If you wish to be considered under this category you must provide appropriate supporting evidence with your application from a doctor, social worker or other professional. This evidence must explain why the preferred school is the most suitable and what difficulties would be caused if the child had to attend another school;

d) Children who live nearest the school (geographical proximity). Under this category, the remaining places will be offered to children who live nearest to the preferred school. The distance will be measured in a straight line between the home front door and the main gate of the school using the local authority’s computerised mapping system.

Tie-breaker

If category (b), (c) or (d) is oversubscribed, geographical proximity (as set out in category (d)) will be used as the ‘tie-breaker’ to decide between the remaining cases. If after measuring distances it is still not possible to decide on the child(ren) to be offered admission (for example two children living in the same block of flats or in the same house) the Local Authority will then use random allocation to decide which of the children can be offered a place.

Twins/multiple births

Where there are twins, etc. wanting admission and there is only a single place left within the admission number, then the Council will exercise as much flexibility as possible within the requirements of infant class sizes. In exceptional circumstances/ cases the Council are able to offer places for both twins and all triplets, even when this means breaching infant class size limits. This may also apply to siblings who are in the same year group.

Address of pupil

The address used on the application form must be the current one at the time of application, i.e. the family’s main residence. If the address changes subsequently, the parent(s)/carer(s) should notify the school. Where the parent(s)/carer(s) live at different addresses, and there is shared parenting, the address used will normally be the one where the child wakes up for the majority of Monday to Friday mornings. If there is any doubt about this, then the address of the Child Benefit recipient will be used. Parent(s)/carer(s) may be asked to show evidence of the claim that is being made for the address, e.g. identity cards of various sorts showing the child’s address as the one claimed. Where there is dispute about the correct address to use, the Council reserves the right to make enquiries of any relevant third parties, e.g. the child’s GP, Council Tax Office, Electoral Registration Office, utilities provider.

For children of UK Service personnel and other Crown Servants returning to the area proof of the posting is all that is required.