Organisation
Norfolk County Council is responsible for arranging all admissions into Norfolk schools. If you are moving into the area, or would like your child to attend our school, please contact the School Admissions team at County Hall on 0344 800 8020. Admissions mid-year are normally organised to start at beginning of each term, unless there are reasons why a child needs to start school straight away (for example, if they can no longer travel to their previous school).
Parents of children who are due to start school for the first time will receive information through the post about how to apply for a place at our school. These letters are normally sent out from Norfolk County Council in the October of the year before the child is due to start school.
Parents can apply for a place online or through the form sent to your home address. Please contact the School Admissions team on the number above if you require any further information. Prospective parents are always welcome to visit the school; please contact the office to arrange a mutually convenient time.
Allocation of Places
School places are allocated in accordance with the Norfolk County Council admissions policy. Our admissions number per year is currently 35 children.
When do children start school?
All parents of children born between 1st September 2017 and 31st August 2018 must be offered a full time place from September 2022. While parents are entitled to defer their admission or request that their child attend on a part-time basis, the child must start school on a full-time basis on the prescribed day following their fifth birthday (or on their fifth birthday if it falls on a prescribed day). The prescribed days are 31 December, 31 March and 31 August.
Can my child start school later?
The law allows parents to ask for their child to be admitted, but lets them delay the start date until later in the school year or to start on a part-time basis. The effect of this is that the place is held and cannot be offered to another child. However, for a place to be held, admission can only be delayed within the academic year. This means the admission must take place by the summer term 2023. Places cannot be held until the following autumn term for those children who are five during the preceding summer term.
Can my child start in Reception the following year?
If your child was born between 1 April and 31 August (summer born), you can choose not to send them to school until the September following their fifth birthday and request that they are admitted out of their normal age group – to Reception, rather than Year 1. The admission authority must consider parental requests and make decisions based on the circumstances of each case and in the best interests of the child.
Parents are encouraged to make these requests in good time before the closing date for the normal admission round. They will need to provide the detailed reasons for their request including any supporting evidence from relevant professionals to enable their request to be given proper consideration. Parents will also need to advise at which school(s) they are planning to express preferences as the decision will be made by the Local Authority.
Where an admission authority agrees to a request to defer until the next academic year, the parent will be able to apply in the following year when their child is 5+ on 1 September. Any agreement to a request to defer admission does not guarantee a place at the preferred schools, but the application will be considered alongside all other applications for a Reception place.
Parents need to be aware that the admission authority for a school can change (for example, if a school becomes an academy). The new admission authority has the legal right to reconsider the request at the time of application.
Where a parent’s request is not upheld, the child will still be considered for a Reception place for the normal year for admission (provided the admission application is received before the application deadline; otherwise this will be treated alongside other late applications).
Parents have a statutory right of appeal against the refusal of a place at a school for which they have applied. This right does not apply if they are offered a place at a school for which they have applied.
Late applications are considered after those received on time and this is why it is important for your request to be made before the closing date for applications for the normal admissions round, so that you can then choose to apply in your child’s normal admissions round if your request is not upheld before the closing date.
Alternatively, you can apply at a later stage, either as a late application for Reception or you can re-apply during the following year for your child to attend a school in Year 1, but this will depend on the availability of spaces in the Year 1 cohort your child would join. Around a third of Reception classes are over-subscribed, so the availability of Year 1 places will be more limited.
The DfE has issued non-statutory guidance “Advice on the admission of summer born children” that can be accessed via ‘Guidance on admissions of summer born children’.
Oversubscription rules for Reception in September 2022/23
If there are more applications for places than there are places available, Norfolk Local Authority will give preference to children living nearest to the school, according to the following rules in this order of priority:
Children who are due to start school AND
- have an Education, Health and Care Plan that names the school;
- are in public care, have been adopted from public care, or adopted from abroad who are due to transfer;
- live in the area served by the school and who have a sibling attending the school at the time of their admission:
- have a disability and live in the area served by the school (appropriate professional evidence will be required to confirm the disability);
- live in the area served by the school;
- children eligible for the service premium where:
a) one of their parents is serving in the regular armed forces (including pupils with a parent who is on full commitment as part of the full time reserve service),
b) they have been registered as a ‘service child’ on the January school census at any point since 2016,
c) one of their parents died whilst serving in the armed forces and the pupil receives a pension under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme or the War Pensions Scheme; - live outside the area served by the school who have a brother or sister with an EHCP or statement of special educational needs attending the school at the time of their admission;
- live outside the area served by the school who have a brother or sister attending the school at the time of their admission;
- have a disability and live outside the area served by the school (appropriate professional evidence will be required to confirm the disability);
- children of staff at the school where the member of staff
a) has been employed at the school for two or more years at the time at which the application for admission to the school is made
and/or
b) is recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable skill-shortage; - live outside the area served by the school.
If all children within any of the above rules cannot be offered a place, the highest priority will be given to children living nearest to the school within that rule. To determine who lives nearest, distance will be measured on a straight line “as the crow flies” basis, using Ordnance Survey data. The address will be measured from the Post Office address point on the property.
In the unlikely event that distance does not separate the final two or more pupils seeking the last remaining place, a random allocation will be used to determine who is offered the final place.
More information about admissions can be found on the ‘Norfolk admission arrangements’ section of the Norfolk County Council website at:
www.norfolk.gov.uk/education-and-learning/schools/school-admissions/norfolk-admission-arrangements
