Primary school application - voluntary aided school

[Luna9]

Hi,

I am applying for a place for my daughter at a voluntary aided school and other community schools; I need to apply through the council as I am applying for an open place; I am wondering whether the schools I applied for receive the information when I apply; do schools receive applications before placements are allocated or only after? Do they receive all the information or only for the children who were successful?

Thank you

[louisejxxx]

They will only receive the list of successful applicants I believe...no info about what preference they were picked at or anything like that.

[JWIM]

For schools in England...
Once the deadline has passed the LA will process all applications. The VA school will receive a list of all applicants naming that school but no information about where the VA school is ranked in the application choices list. The information our LA provides is name of child, admissions category (eg in catchment and sibling at school), address and distance from home to school based on LA measuring system. We do not see the application form sent to the LA.

The VA school ranks all the named children in accordance with their Admissions Policy and returns the ranked list to the LA. All notifications of allocated places are made by the LA.

[Luna9]

Thank you! It is a school in London

When do school receive this information? I mean how long does it take for a LA to allocate the places? Does this happens before April?


Thank you

[Doodledot]

All school offers go out April 16th

[catslife]

I would double check the entry requirements for the VA school OP. Most VA schools will admit pupils based on faith criteria e.g. church attendance or baptism and there will be an additional application form for this which will be signed by your vicar. This form will need to be filled in as well as the LEA application and is sent to the school.
Some VA schools don't fill all their places this way, so there will still be places left for people who live close enough to the school. I am wondering if that is what you mean by "an open place'.
However it would be worth checking if you need to fill out an additional form for these community places as your application would be rejected if you hadn't sent in an essential form.
My dd attends a VA school where there is a box to tick, if you are applying for a community place.
This can vary from school to school and may not be needed, but I would make sure you have done everything correctly.
HTH

[MaudantWit]

An "open place" at a VA school usually means one to which the church attendance/other faith criteria don't apply and which are therefore open to all. Usually, this means they are allocated according to proximity to the school.

I agree that OP should check exactly what the oversubscription criteria say about how such places will be allocated.

[AuntieStella]

VA schools are their own admissions authority.

You apply through the council, and they send details of all applicants to the school, who then rank them according to their criteria (which might mean two lists, one for faith and one for open places).

The lists are then returned to the LEA, who then look at all the lists (from schools which produce their own and from all the ones for which they compile the lists) and use a computer programme to turn those lists into the final ones (ie if you qualify for more than one school, your lower preferences are deleted and pupils on the lists for those schools shuffle up). When the shuffling is done, then offers are made.