Over Subscription Criteria

Children living within the catchment areas of Chilcote Primary, Hall Green Infant and Hall Green Junior Schools will have priority over those living outside these catchment areas.

Please see individual, academies, voluntary aided and foundation schools for their over-subscription criteria.

The following definitions apply to all:

• Birmingham maintained schools
  
• Catholic schools in Birmingham.
  

Definitions that apply to all Birmingham Maintained Schools

Children with statements of special educational needs (SEN)
Any child with a statement of special educational need (SEN) is required to be admitted to the school that is named in their statement. This gives any such child overall priority for admission to the named school.

Definition of looked after or previously looked after children
Looked after children or children who were previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, residence or special guardianship order. This includes any child/young person who is subject to a Full Care Order, an interim Care Order, accommodated under Section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989, is remanded or detained into local authority accommodation under Criminal Law or who has been placed for adoption. Birmingham City Council’s School Admissions and Pupil Placements Service will obtain names of all children who are looked after or were previously looked after, within the appropriate age range, from the Looked After Children Education Service (LACES). Places for these children will be considered in accordance with each school’s admission criteria.

Distance – Home to school measurements
Distances are calculated on the basis of a straight-line measurement between the applicant’s home address and a point decided by the school (usually the front gates). The local authority uses a computerised system, which measures all distances in metres. Ordnance Survey supply the co-ordinates that are used to plot an applicant’s home address within this system.

Additional / supplementary forms
All parents who list their preferred schools on the Birmingham Local Authority Preference Form are regarded as having made valid applications. However, an additional or supplementary form may also have to be completed for applicants considered under faith criteria for faith schools. Failure to complete an additional or supplementary form may affect the category in which your child is placed.

Parents / Family Members
A parent / carer is any person who has parental responsibility for, or is the legal guardian of the child. Where admission arrangements refer to parents' attendance at church it is sufficient for just one parent to attend. Family members include only parents, as defined above, and siblings.

Shared Responsibility
Where parents have shared responsibility for a child, and the child lives with both parents for part of the week, the main residence is determined as the address where the child lives for the majority of the week. Parents may be requested to supply documentary evidence to support the address used.

Separating "final qualifier" applications (twins, blocks of flats etc)
In a very small number of cases it may not be possible to decide between the applications of those pupils who are the final qualifiers for a place, when applying the published admission criteria. For example, this may occur when children in the same year group live at the same address, or where there are twins, or if the distance between the home and school is exactly the same, for example, blocks of flats. If there is no other way of separating the application according to the admissions criteria and to admit both, or all of the children, would cause the legal limit to be exceeded, the local authority will use a computerised system to randomly select the child to be offered the final place.

For example:
Twins A and B live at the same address and their parents apply for Green Primary School, a two form entry school admitting 60 each year. When the places are offered for admission to the school and the admission criteria are applied to all applications, the twins are 60th on the list. Only one pupil may be admitted in order to comply with the legal limits and so the local authority offers the place by random electronic selection. Parents receive an offer of a place at Green Primary School for B only.

In the event of twins or multiple birth applicants being offered different schools due to class size legislation, the sibling will be given priority over other applicants on the preferred school’s waiting list.

Sibling Definition - academies, community, voluntary controlled, voluntary aided (including Church of England) and foundation schools.
Children (siblings) with an older brother or sister already at the school who will still be in attendance at the time the sibling enters the school.

Siblings (brothers or sisters) are considered to be those children who live at the same address and either:

1. have one or both natural parents in common; or
2. are related by a parent's marriage; or
3. are adopted or fostered by a common parent.

Unrelated children living at the same address, whose parents are living as partners, are also considered to be siblings.

Children with a statement of special educational need (SEN)
Children with a statement of special educational need (SEN) that names the school must be admitted. This will reduce the number of places available to applicants.

Evidence of Catholic Baptism or Reception into the Church
In all categories, for a child to be considered as a Catholic, evidence of Catholic Baptism or Reception into the Church will be required. See the definition of a Baptised Catholic. Those who face difficulties in producing written evidence of baptism should contact their Parish Priest.

Parents making an application for a Catholic child should also complete the school’s supplementary information form (SIF). Failure to complete the SIF may affect the criterion the child’s name is placed in.

Sibling Definition - voluntary aided Catholic schools only
The definition of a brother or sister is:

• A brother or sister sharing the same parents;
• Half-brother or half-sister, where two children share one common parent;
• Step-brother or step-sister, where two children are related by a parent marriage;
• Adopted or fostered children.

Distance – Home to school measurements
Distances are calculated on the basis of a straight-line measurement between the applicant’s home address and a point decided by the school (usually the front gates). The local authority uses a computerised system, which measures all distances in metres. Ordnance Survey supplies the co-ordinates that are used to plot an applicant’s home address within this system. This applies to all primary schools apart from St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, which will measure to the front door of their parish church (Holy Trinity, Sutton Coldfield or Sacred Heart, Four Oaks) when deciding the priority that places should be offered.

The home address of a pupil is considered to be the permanent residence of a child. The address must be the child’s only or main residence for the majority of the week. Documentary evidence may be required. Where care is split equally between mother and father, parents must name which address is to be used for the purpose of allocating a school place and proof may be requested.

Parish Boundaries Maps
A map of the parish boundary is available at the school and parish church.

Waiting lists
Parents whose children have not been offered their preferred school will be informed of their right of appeal and will be added to their preferred school’s waiting list.

The local authority will send voluntary aided and foundation schools their waiting lists following the offer of school places. Waiting lists will remain open until 31 December 2013 and will then be discarded. Parents may apply for their child’s name to be reinstated.

Waiting lists will not be fixed following the offer of places. They are subject to change. This means that a child’s waiting list position during the year could go up or down. Any late applicants accepted will be added to the school’s list in accordance with the order of priority for offering places.

Appeals
Parents who wish to appeal against the decision of the Governors to refuse their child a place in the school may apply in writing to the Chair of Governors. Appeals will be heard by an independent panel.

Definition of a Baptised Catholic
To establish clarity, consistency and fairness in the application of the criteria of admission in Catholic schools, in accordance with the Trust Deed of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, it is necessary to define the description of a 'Baptised Catholic' for the benefit of parents who are making applications and for the governors who formulate and apply the criteria for admissions.

A baptised Catholic is one who:

Has been baptised into full communion (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 837) with the Catholic Church by the Rites of Baptism of one of the various ritual Churches in communion with the See of Rome (i.e. Latin Rite, Byzantine Rite, Coptic, Syriac, etc, Cf Catechism of the Catholic Church 1203). Written evidence* of this baptism can be obtained by resource to the baptism Registers of the church in which the baptism took place (Cf Code of Canon Law, 877 and 878)

Or

*Has been validly baptised in the separated ecclesial community and subsequently received into full communion with the Catholic Church by the Rite of Reception of Baptised Christians into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church. Written evidence of their baptism and reception into full communion with the Catholic church can be obtained by resource to the Register of Receptions, or in some cases, a sub-section of the Baptismal registers of the church in which the Rite of Reception took place (Cf. Rite of Christian Initiation, 399)

Written Evidence of Baptism
The Governing bodies of Catholic schools will require evidence in the form of a Certificate of Baptism or Certificate of Reception before applications for school places can be considered for categories of 'Baptised Catholics'. A certificate of Baptism or Reception is to include:

The full name, date of birth, date of baptism or reception, and parent(s) name(s). The certificate must also show that it is copied from the records kept by the place of baptism or reception.

Those who would have difficulty obtaining written evidence of baptism for a good reason, may still be considered as baptised Catholics, but only after they have been referred to the parish priest who, after consulting the Vicar General, will decide how the question of baptism is to be resolved and how written evidence is to be produced in accordance with the law of the Church.

Governors may request extra supporting evidence when the written documents that are produced do not clarify the fact that a person was baptised or received into the Catholic Church, (i.e. where the name and address of the Church is not on the certificate or where the name of the Church does not state whether it is a Catholic Church or not).