The senior officer responded below not good:
Dear Mr Bashir,
This principle has been legally tested by the Office of the School’s Adjudicator regarding Stockport’s admissions arrangements. The OSA found no fault in the way Stockport sets out its admissions arrangements.
The contention and justification is as follows:
Late applications or changes of preference i.e. those received after the closing date will be considered after all those received by the closing date. The Admission Authority reserves the right to accept an application as if it were received on time if there are exceptional circumstances i.e. the family have moved into Stockport and could not have applied for a place earlier or there are specific reasons for the late application or change of preference. If this takes place after the offer date, applicants will be placed on the waiting list* at the appropriate point
Section 2.14 states the example of where it would be unlawful for an Admission Authority to use the date of application to place a child on the waiting list i.e. a child moving into the area of a Local Authority. In such circumstances, Stockport would not consider such an application as ‘late’ i.e. received after the published closing date for applications because the parent would not have been in a position to make the application at an earlier stage. The application would be considered in line with the published admission arrangements and placed accordingly on the waiting list if a place were not available at the preferred school.
Stockport considers that an application is ‘late’ where there are no significant circumstances preventing the parent from making an application by the published closing date. This is consistent with the statutory requirement to have a published closing date and to ensure that all parents have fair and equal opportunity to access the school admissions process outlined in the Code.
The actual date the application is received is not used to determine the allocation of a school place or placing on the waiting list. The published closing date is the only date used to determine the cut-off point when the process of allocating school places is made. All applications received after the closing date must therefore, be considered after that point in line with the published oversubscription criteria and allocated places or placed on the waiting list, after those received by the closing date, in oversubscription criteria order.
Stockport Council acts in accordance with its published admission arrangements and is not in breach of the School Admissions Code in processing late applications.