What is the usual admissions policy for a CofE primary School?

[northerner]

Ds will satrt school in 18 months time. Started looking at primary schools in our area, and have found one we would love him to attend. However, it is not in our catchment area and it is a CofE school and ds is not christened.

Have tried calling the school, but of course due to school hols nobody is there.

Just wondered if anyone has any experience of this. Are our chances totally nill, or should I whip ds off to the nearest font quicker than you can say jesus

at our catholic school:
1st priority goes to baptised children who live in the parish
then baptised children who live out of parish
i think non-baptised children come last but some children in this category got into our school with no problems. depends what the intake (ours is 2 form) is

Northerner the CofE schools round here tend to have the following list of priorities (or something similar) =

1. children living within the designated area
2. children with siblings at the school
3. children with families registered at the local church
4. children who's parents prefer a christian education for their children

Some also mention - children who's parents are active members of the church

SO they don't specifically mention that they have to be christened, unlike the catholic school.

Can you get a list of the criteria from the council? In Wiltshire we havea guide to school admissions that lists most of the schools and the order that they prioritise.

Good luck!

Thanks - am of to search the council website.

Northerner - PMSL at your post!! Your last sentence made me spit coffee on the keyboard

It depends on how popular the school is but as an 'out of zoner' with no sibling already in the school and not baptised, you are certainly going to be right at the bottom of the list atm!

For the CofE primary we applied to, the admissions criteria was roughly:

1. siblings
2. regular church goers
3. special needs
4. distance from school

These criteria were specified in the prospectus we got from the school. The application form required a vicar should sign to say that the family were regular church-goers. We aren't so obviously didn't complete that bit. DS didn't get into the school - the intake was completely filled by those falling in category 1 and 2.

Some local authority websites specify admission criteria, although not always for church schools. Hopefully you'll be able to get hold of a prospectus once the holidays are over. It all boils down to that and how popular the school is.

Northener - our Local Education Authority produces a booklet with the full contact details and admission criteria for every school in the area. It might be worth ringing yours to see if they do something similar.
I think we actually got our copy from the school office of the school we were interested in, so you might just be able to pop into your local school and ask for one?

Goblidigook!

Tis not looking good then is it. I suppose I could start going to church on a sunday.

all the schools round here are church (CofE) schools. We visited 3 of them last autumn and no-one ever mentioned being christened. Admissions criteria were catchement, siblings, special needs, and those wanting CofE school specifically.

Usually with CoE it's nothing to do with being baptised. It is whether you (the parents) are regular members of your church.

Our local CofE school doesn't admit anyone who's parents are not regular attenders at that particular church (another one nearby will not do), and some regular attenders have found that they were not regular enough. Oversubscribed by an almighty frightening amount.

at the cofe church near us they take a register at church

Are you talking about the church at the top of Highbury Hill, bundle? I'd heard about the register bit too -- assumed they were taking the mick, but it seems not.

the one near highbury barn

That's the one, bundle. Amazingly, the people we know who go along with this aren't even believers it is solely about the school. IME Catholic schools tend to be a bit more subtle the priests know all the regular mass-attenders anyway.

Having said that, at dd1's First Communion classes they did take a register, as there were lots of kids from outside the school who were a bit of an unknown quantity. And at the most popular Catholic girls' secondary we were told in no uncertain terms that they couldn't even consider girls who weren't baptised and had made 1st Communion, nor would they consider girls who had also applied to any non-Catholic school, or to any selective school. What price parental choice?

In response to the original question, your local authority should produce a booklet entitled "Starting Primary School" or something similar, which should outline the admissions policies for all its schools including voluntary-aided ones. It should also tell you how many children were admitted under each criterion in the previous year and, if there is a distance criterion, what the cut-off distance was.

As others have said - you need the LEA booklet for full details.

There is a difference between

• voluntary CONTROLLED church schools, which mostly use standard criteria but church attendance gives you an advantage over someone else, all else being equal, and
• voluntary AIDED at which the governors set the admissions criteria, often "attend the named church" being the top one.