Admissions

Saint Mary’s is a Roman Catholic Primary School provided by the Diocese of Salford and is maintained by the Bury Local Authority as a Voluntary Aided School. The school's Governing Body is the Admissions Authority and is responsible for taking decisions on applications for admissions. The co-ordination of admissions arrangements is undertaken by the local authority.  

 For the school year commencing September 2021, the Governing Body has set its planned admissions number at 60.

As a Roman Catholic Primary School, Saint Mary’s sees assisting parents in the practice and development of the Catholic faith of their children as its primary responsibility. Its role is to provide an all-round atmosphere and environment which will help the children develop fully, providing not just education in curriculum subjects, but also formation in faith, prayer and charity, which will allow the children to become responsible mature Catholics taking their place in society. Religious Education and Catholic prayer and worship are central to the school’s ethos, and all parents applying for a place must understand and respect this ethos, its importance to the school community, and its practical consequences. This does not affect the right of non-Catholic parents to apply for a place at this school.

 

Parents must complete a Local Authority Preference Form or apply online via the website:

http://www.bury.gov.uk/admissions

 

Supplementary Form

Parents who wish to seek priority under any criterion that requires additional evidence (such as your child being baptised Roman Catholic) must complete the school’s Supplementary Form (SIF) and return it to the school with baptism and full birth certificates attached. (If you do not complete the supplementary form, your child will not be considered under the faith criteria). Short birth certificates will be checked if a place is offered. Please attach full ones where possible. The form is available from the school, the school website or the Local Authority website and must be returned to the school by closing date for applications.

If there are fewer than 60 applications, all applicants will be offered places. If there are more applications than the number of places available, the following oversubscription criteria will be applied:

1	Baptised Roman Catholic Looked After Children and previously Looked After Children
2	Children with exceptional social, medical, educational or religious need which can be best met, or only met at this school *
3	Baptised Roman Catholic children who will have a brother or sister attending the school at the time of admission
4	Other Baptised Roman Catholic children who are resident in the parish of Saint Mary and Saint Philip Neri, Radcliffe
5	Other Baptised Roman Catholic children resident in another parish
6	Other  Looked After Children and previously Looked After Children
7	Other children (Non-Roman Catholic children) who have siblings in the school
8	Other children (Non-Roman Catholic) who are resident in the Parish of Saint Mary and Saint Philip Neri, Radcliffe
9	Other children

 

PROOF OF ADDRESS MUST BE PROVIDED WITH ALL APPLICATIONS FOR ADMISSION

NOTES:

All applications will be considered at the same time and after the closing date for admissions which is 15 January 2021.

 

*Special Educational Needs children who have a statement. The allocation of places for SEN children is the responsibility of the LA so they are removed from the school’s admission policy. If the school is named in the statement the school has no right of refusal; therefore these children take priority over all others and may be offered a place even if the allocated number for intake has been reached.

 

1. Applications received after this date will be treated as a late application and will not be considered until after the main allocation of places has taken place. The LA will only accept applications received after this date if there is a genuine reason for doing so.  Late applications will be considered in accordance with the published admissions criteria. They will be placed on a reserve list in priority order according to the published admissions criteria. Parents will be notified if a vacancy subsequently arises.

2. Admission to the Reception Class is separate to that for the Nursery. Attendance at the Nursery does not give any child any guarantee or priority when it comes to consideration by the Governors of applicants for admission to the Reception Class.

3. A ‘Looked After Child’ is a child who is (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 (under section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989). A ‘previously Looked After Child’ is one who immediately moved on from that status after becoming subject to an adoption, residence or special guardianship order.

4. The Governing Body will consider children with proven and exceptional medical and social needs where admission to the school might best help satisfy those exceptional needs, providing that such an application is submitted with appropriate evidence from a doctor or social worker. Parents should explain why Saint Mary’s RC Primary School is more suitable than any other school and what difficulties would be caused if the child had to attend a different school.

*Exceptional needs of this kind will occur very rarely. It is strongly recommended that a written application is submitted in advance of the normal admissions timetable.

5. For a child to be considered as a Catholic, evidence of a Catholic Baptism or reception into the Catholic Church is required. Written evidence of reception into the Catholic Church can be obtained by referring 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. If, for example, a child has been baptised in the Church of England and the parents are subsequently admitted to the Catholic Church through the RCIA programme, the child must also be admitted to the Church by the Rite of Reception.

The Governing Body will require written evidence in the form of a Certificate of Reception before applications for school places can be considered for categories of ‘Baptised Catholics’. A Certificate of Reception is to include full name, date of birth, date of reception and parent(s) name(s). The certificate must also show that it is copied from the records kept by the place of reception.

Those who 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 with Salford Diocese 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.

6. ‘Home Address’ is considered to be the address where the child normally lives. Where care is split and a child moves between two addresses, the household in receipt of the child benefit would normally be the address used but the admission authority body reserves the right to request other evidence as fits the individual circumstance. Applicants should not state the address of another relative or person who has daily care of the child.  Where a child lives with parents with shared responsibility, each for part of a week, the child’s “permanent place of residence” will be determined as the address of the parent who normally has responsibility for the majority of the school days in a week.

7. Parents/applicants should check carefully whether they are resident within the parish boundary of Saint Mary and Saint Philip Neri. Please consult school for verification.

8.  Sibling is defined as a full brother or sister, half brother or sister, adopted brother or sister, step brother or sister, or the child of the parent/carer’s partner where the child for whom the school place is sought is living in the same family unit at the same address as that sibling. This does not include cousins or other family relationships.

1. If the school is oversubscribed, a waiting list will be maintained for the full autumn term the academic year of admissions. The waiting list does not consider the date the application was received or the length of time a child's name has been on the waiting list. If places become available, they will be offered in accordance with the School’s Admission Criteria. Parents will be informed of their child’s position on the waiting list.

10. For ‘In Year’ applications received outside the normal admissions round, if places are available they will be offered to those who apply. If there are places available but more applicants than places then the published oversubscription criteria will be applied and any children not offered a place will be added to the waiting list described in note i.

11. If in any category there are more applications than places available priority will be given on the basis of proximity. The distance will be measured using the Local Authority’s computerised mapping system which uses the ordnance survey integrated network. The route will be measured using a straight line from the front door of the child’s home address (including the community entrance to flats) to the main entrance of the school.  Those living closer to school will receive the higher priority.

(l)         If an application for admission has been turned down by the Governing Body, parents/ carers may appeal to an Independent Appeals Panel. Parents must be allowed at least twenty school days from the date of notification that their application was unsuccessful to submit that appeal. Parents must give reasons for appealing in writing and the decision of the Appeals Panel is binding on the Governors.

1000.  The Governing Body reserve the right to withdraw the offer of a school place where false evidence is received in relation to the application.

14. It is the duty of Governors to comply with regulations on class size limits for children aged between rising five and seven. This means that the school cannot operate classes in Key Stage One of more than 30 children. The Governing Body may exceed the regulations for twins and children from multiple births where one of the children is the 30th child admitted. This also applies to in-year applicants who are looked after/previously looked after, children of UK service personnel or children who move into the area for whom there is no other school available within a reasonable distance.

(o)        If a child is a “summer born child”, parents may request that the date their child is admitted to school is deferred to later in the school year. However, the child must start school before the end of that school year. If a parent wishes their child to be educated out of their normal school year (kept back a year), they must discuss this with the school before applying. However, the final decision on this rests with the headteacher.

16. Parents may request that their child attend school part-time until he/she reaches his/her fifth birthday.

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