Is this technically a breach of the admissions code?

[timbermeshivers]

The Admissions code says .....

"1.39 Admission authorities may give priority in their oversubscription criteria to children of staff in either or both of the following circumstances:
a) where the member of staff 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) the member of staff is recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable skill shortage."

Schools in my area do this but instead of "two or more years at the time at which the application for admission to the school is made" they use "two or more years at the time of admission to the school". They do this to prevent staff from resigning as soon as they've put in their application, which is fair enough.

Trouble is, there's a 10 month gap between application and admission. A member of staff who has been employed for 2 years at the point of admissions would have only been employed for 14 months at the point of application. Therefore is this wording a breach of the code? Shouldn't they have increased it to 3 years if they wanted to make this change?

You're probably right that it is technically a breach. I can see why they've done it that way but I think they're probably on slightly shaky ground.

Yes, that is a clear breach, not just a technical one. They can set a higher service requirement but not a lower one. The requirement they have set is clearly lower than that in the Admissions Code. If you refer this to the Schools Adjudicator I would expect it to be overturned.

I agree. It effectively reduces the time the staff member must have worked at the school and donfiesmt comply with the Code. If they're concerned about staff resigning they should add "and will still be working at the school at the time of admission" or some such wording.