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

Chetwynd Junior School

 

Admission Arrangements for entry in September 2023 (coordinated scheme) and In-Year admissions for the 2023/24 academic year

 

Introduction

The Governing Body of Chetwynd Junior School have adopted the following arrangements for entry to the school in September 2023.

As a local authority-maintained school in Warwickshire, these admission arrangements form part of Warwickshire County Council’s (the ‘local authority’) co-ordinated admissions scheme, as confirmed in further detail on the website.

It is strongly advised that you read all available local authority documentation relating to the admissions process before making a school application for your child.

www.warwickshire.gov.uk/schoollacriteria

 

Coordinated Admissions

All local authorities are required to have in place a scheme for coordinating admission arrangements for maintained schools and other mainstream state-funded schools (e.g.: academies) within their area. Coordinated schemes are intended to simplify the admission process for parent/carers whilst reducing the likelihood of any child being left without a school place.

 

Coordination establishes a mechanism that ensures that, as far as is reasonably practicable, every parent/carer of a child who has applied for a school place is sent a single offer of a school place by the local authority in which their home address falls (their ‘home authority’).

 

Under the system of coordinated admissions, parent/carers apply directly to their home authority and make a single application for school places. Authorities then exchange application data, and this is used to determine which children can be offered a place at which school. Parent/carers then receive a single offer of a school place from their home authority.

 

Only parent/carers/carers of children who are resident in the county of Warwickshire can make an application through the Warwickshire School Admissions Service. The Admissions Service will manage the process of allocating school places in line with the Coordinated Admissions Scheme.

 

Applying for a place

Parents/carers apply for school places using a Common Application Form (CAF).

The National Closing Date to apply for a place at this school, for entry in September 2023, is 15th January 2024.

 

Parents are encouraged to apply for a school place using Warwickshire’s online application system. This allows parents to complete an electronic version of the CAF. The advantages of the online system are as follows:

 

• The process is relatively quick and easy.
• Applicants receive an acknowledgment email confirming that their application has been submitted.
• Parents applying online receive their offer of a school place from 08.30am on National Offer Day.

 

National Offer Day, for on-time applications made in line with the 2024 entry co-ordinated admissions scheme, is 16th April 2024.

 

Warwickshire Admissions Service will contact parents who are resident within the county, who have made an on-time application, to inform them which school their child has been offered. Offers will not come directly from the school.

 

Over-subscription Criteria

The school’s Published Admission Number for this entry year is 90.

In the event that there are more applications than places available then the below over-subscription criteria will be used.

Please note that children with an Education, Health and Care Plan that names the school must be admitted and this may reduce the overall number of places available.

Junior Schools (Year 3 entry) If a Warwickshire Community or Voluntary Controlled junior school is over-subscribed, then the following over-subscription criteria will be used when allocating places. Additional information about criterion can be found below.

Criterion 1a: Looked after children and all previously looked after children.

Criterion 1b: Children who have been adopted through a CVAA UK agency.

Criterion 2: Children who receive the Pupil Premium, or Service Premium, through their current school, or who have done so at any point since starting school in Reception.

Criterion 3: Children who are currently, or have been at any point since 1st September 2015, subject to a Child in Need Plan or a Child Protection Plan.

Criterion 4: Children who currently attend the partner infant school and who intend to remain at that school until the end of the 2023/2024 academic year in July 2024.

Criterion 5: Children living in the priority area for the school, who will have a sibling attending the same school in Years 4, 5 or 6 at the time of admission in September 2024.

Criterion 5: Children living in the priority area for the school, who will have a sibling attending the partner infant school at the time of admission in September 2024*.

Criterion 6: Other children living in the priority area for the school. Criterion 7a: Children living outside the priority area for the school, who will have a sibling attending the same school in Years 4, 5 or 6 at the time of admission in September 2024.

Criterion 7b: Children living outside the priority area for the school, who will have a sibling attending the partner infant school at the time of admission in September 2024*.

Criterion 8: Other children living outside the priority area for the school.

*If you are also applying for a Reception place at the partner infant school for another child, for entry in September 2024, please be aware that they will not be considered as a sibling link for the junior school applicant until after that child has been offered a place at the infant school and you have confirmed your acceptance of the Reception place.

 

Priority (‘catchment’) area

Details of the school’s priority area can be found on the Warwickshire County Council website.

www.warwickshire.gov.uk/mapinfantprimaryschools

Where applicants are allocated the same criterion, priority is given in order of distance between the child’s home and the school applied for (shortest distance = highest priority).

Distance will be calculated by using a straight-line measurement from the address point location coordinate of the applicant’s home address (as set by Ordnance Survey) to the centre point (‘centroid’) of the school in question.

(The centroid is a predetermined point set by Warwickshire County Council and all distances are subject to changes which may occur with updates of mapping data).

 

Evidence of the Child’s Home Address

As part of the application process, documentation concerning the child’s home address will be requested. If the application is made through the local authority’s online portal, then such documentation will be requested at the point the application is started. Such documents can be uploaded to the parent/carer’s online account.

Acceptable documents to confirm a child’s home address include:

• 2023/2024 Council Tax Bill
• 2023/2024 Council Tax Benefit letter/notice
• Utility bill (gas, water or electric), dated within the last 6 months
• Full copy of tenancy agreement or recent mortgage statement for the property, dated within the last 12 months
• Copy of most recent Child Tax Credits or Child Benefit letter.

 

Home-to-School Transport

An offer of a school place does not necessarily mean that home-to-school transport assistance will be automatically provided to the child. Applications for home-to-school transport assistance – usually in the form of a free bus pass – are assessed in line with the relevant Transport Policy. The criteria set out in that policy is different to the criteria and policy which is followed in relation to the school admissions process, and the time of making an application for transport assistance can also have an impact on the outcome, as this will not necessarily correlate with the school admissions process.

If transport assistance has been approved, but an alternative school can be offered from a waiting list, then this assistance may be stopped if the place from the waiting list is not taken up.

Where transport assistance is requested in the case of a child who has been given an ‘unplaced’ school offer, such cases will be considered on an individual basis. It is important that parent/carers consider their child’s transport options to and from school when making an application for school places.

Where families are not eligible for home-to-school transport assistance then it is the legal responsibility of the parent/carer / carer to ensure that the child gets to and from school each day, not the local authority and not the school that the child will be attending.

Information on applying for transport assistance, and the criteria used when assessing applications, can be found on the Warwickshire County Council website.

www.warwickshire.gov.uk/schooltravel

 

Appeals

Parent/carers will be informed by their home authority of their statutory right of appeal when they receive the outcome of their application. Parent/carers can appeal for any school where their child has not been offered a place.

Appeals for this school can be lodged online through the Warwickshire County Council website.

www.warwickshire.gov.uk/schoolappeals

 

Waiting Lists

Waiting lists for this school will be held by the Local Authority and are compiled in strict priority order against the published oversubscription criteria. Offers will be made from the waiting lists as any vacancies arise.

A child’s position can move both up and down the waiting list as other students are added to the list. Late applicants are not penalised when added to waiting lists, and the amount of time a child has been on a school’s waiting list is irrelevant.

Waiting lists will be held throughout the academic year. However, parent/carers will be responsible for contacting the Admissions Service should they wish their child to remain on the waiting list at the end of each term.

 

In-Year Admissions

As a local authority-maintained school, parent/carers should apply directly to Warwickshire County Council for places in all year groups where the co-ordinated scheme does not apply, following the relevant In-Year admissions process.

 

Fair Access Protocol

The School adopts Warwickshire County Council’s Fair Access Protocol. Further information can be found on the website.

www.warwickshire.gov.uk/moving-schools-within-school-year

 

 

• Looked after children and previously looked after children

 

Children in the care of, or provided with accommodation by, their local authority (also known as ‘looked after children’) and children who were in care but ceased to be so because they were adopted or became subject to a child arrangement order or special guardianship order (also known as ‘previously looked after children’).

 

Relevant documentation, such as a full or interim care order, may be requested as part of the admissions process.

 

• Sibling, i.e. brother or sister, attending the school at the time of admission

 

Sibling is defined as: a full brother or sister; a half brother or sister; an adopted brother or sister; a child living in the same address who is being Looked After by a local authority; a step-brother or sister; or the child of a parent/carers’ partner, where the child for whom the school place is being sought is living in the same family unit and at the same address as that sibling.

 

• Definition of Home Address

 

Where the child normally resides during the school week and where they sleep for at least 50% of the school week.

 

If arrangements are such that a child resides at two addresses for equal amounts of time, then parent/carers must decide which address to use for admissions purposes.

 

Failure to agree on the address to use on the child’s application for a school by the national closing date will result in Warwickshire County Council using a random number generator to determine which application to process.

 

Addresses involved in child-minding arrangements, whether with professional childminders, friends, or relatives, are excluded. Where a school place is offered based on an address which is subsequently found to be different from the address where the child ordinarily resides, that place may be withdrawn.

 

There is an expectation that the child will be resident at the address used to allocate a place on a long-term basis, and until at least the start of the autumn term (September 2022) in relation to the coordinated admissions process.

 

Short-term house moves purely to secure a school place may be considered fraudulent or intentionally misleading and, in such circumstances, the place may be withdrawn.

 

Where a child’s address changes after a place at the school has been allocated, the Local Authority may request an explanation for the house move and documentary evidence to show that the child is resident at the new property.

 

The Admissions Service operates a thorough and robust address checking process, which may include both announced and unannounced home visits.

 

• Applications which need to be prioritised within a criterion, where the distance from home to school is identical

 

Where required, individual priority for such applicants within a criterion will be determined by a random number generator allocation. The draw will be carried out by two officers of the Admissions Service in the presence of a local authority solicitor. The result of the draw will be recorded and countersigned at the time by all parties involved. Applicants will be notified of the outcome in writing.

 

• Multiple applications made by the same parent/carer / household

 

If more than one application is made prior to the national closing date by the same parent/carer/carer/household, then only the newest application will be processed (i.e.: the last application made before the deadline). Any applications made previously will not be processed.

 

If the newest application is submitted after the closing date then it will be treated as a late application (unless there has been a change of address, in line with the requirements detailed above) and will not be processed until after national offer day.

 

Following National Offer Day, the Admissions Service will accept new applications for the school and, if required, further amendments to existing applications.

 

• Multiple applications made by Separated Parent/Carers

 

Neither the school nor the Admissions Service will become involved in disputes between parent/carers, carers, or other responsible parties, regarding applications for school places. Where parent/carers cannot agree on either the home address or the school preferences to name on an application (or both), the Admissions Service will contact both parent/carers to inform them of the situation and to request that they confirm between themselves, and to the local authority, which application and school preferences to take forward. This may require the involvement of the courts, if necessary.

 

If this fails to resolve the matter, then the Admissions Service reserves the right to consider only the application made by the parent/carer with whom the child resides for the majority of nights during the school week. Where the child spends 50% of their time with each parent/carer, and a decision cannot be reached by the relevant closing date for the submission of applications, the local authority will intervene and act on their behalf. The local authority uses a computer ‘random generator’ to select either parent/carer A or parent/carer B’s application. This process is carried out by two Admissions officers in the presence of a local authority solicitor. Parent/carer A and B are advised which application will be processed.

 

• Twins, Triplets or other multiple-births
  Where the final place in a year group is offered to one of twins, triplets or another multiple-birth child, place(s) will normally be offered to the other multiple-birth child(ren)  where the local authority and school are in agreement - even if this means going above the school’s Published Admission Number (also see Infant Class Size).