Can you help me decipher wording of admissions policy

[NoseyNooNoo]

My local school comprises Nursery, Reception and then Years 1-6. My question relates to the policy on siblings.

The nursery policy gives prioriry to 'children who have a sibling in attendance at the school at the time of enrolment of the new pupil'.
The school policy (i.e. admission to Reception) is 'children who will have a sibling in attendance at the schoiol (Year 1 to 6) at the time of enrolment of the new pupil.

So when applying for a Nursery place for Sept 2011 entry, if a child has an older sibling currently anywere between nursery and Year 6 would you exclude any of those siblings for the purpose of giving sibling priority?
Also, if applying for a Reception place for 2011 entry, if the child has an older sibling currently in school would you exclude any siblings for the purpose of giving priority?
What do you understand, 'at the time of enrolment of the new pupil' to mean? Is that at the time of application or 1 September 2011?

Any light you can shine would be useful.

I think it means when the child actually starts in school. Someone I know fell foul of this because the sibling was in year 6 at the time of application but was not treated as a sibling under the allocation rules because they had left the school by the September when the younger one would start. They didn't get a place. Not sure if I have explained this very well!

Check with the school/LEA, but I would take "at time of enrolment" to mean the first day of the September term.

SomI would take it to mean that a qualifying older sibling is any who will still be at the school in September (ie not current year 6 as they will have left by then).

Phone the school to clarify.

I think the other posters are right - it is at the time of starting the school ie 1 Sept

At the other end of the age range, how about if you were applying for a nursery place and a reception place. Would you expect the nursery applications to take into account whether an older sibling, currently in the nursery, was possibly starting in Reception in September?

I think it should, in expectation of your taking up the place, but this only works logistically if nursery places are allocated after the reception ones.

Thanks for your thoughts. I have chacked with the school, hence my post here. They are clearly nto keeping to the admissions policy and i wanted to check that I was reading it correctly.

It is badly written. However...

If you are applying for a Reception place for September you will receive priority if the child has a sibling who will already be at the school when the child starts school. So to get priority you need a sibling who is currently in Reception or Y1-Y5. A sibling currently in Y6 won't help as that child will have left the school by September. They are not allowed to give priority to a child based on a sibling who will have left the school by the time the child starts.

A child in the nursery will not give priority to a child applying for a place in Reception. However, based on the wording here if a child gets a place in Reception that should give priority for Nursery provided they do the Nursery allocations after the Reception allocations.

In what way are they failing to follow their admissions policy?

The school have chosen to do the nursery allocations 2 months before the reception allocations. I have questioned this and they said they only consider siblings to be those currently in the school whilst their own wording says siblings are those in school at the time of enrolment. I think I can contest the allocation given the wording and their actions.

DC2 hasn't got a place in the nursery because 52+ siblings have taken the 52 places - this in an area where most people are retired i.e. not with children. I've had many a converstation at toddler groups where grannies have said that their grandchildren attend the school because they 'live' with them for the relevant year. I can't make the school stop the cheating but I can stop the school not following its own wording.

Having said that, it's all academic. DC1 probably won't get a place in Reception anyway due to all of the siblings.

Depending on the wording of the admission criteria, the address given on application may not be relevant where siblings are involved. If you feel able to identify the school involved I'll take a look and see if I can provide any further advice.

I'm also puzzled as to why schools need to decide on nursery allocations prior to Reception allocations. In our case, this only happens at the beginning of April, and we did apply for a place at the school in question for DD1. But on the application form for DD2 it already asks if there is any sibling at the school. Well, how would I know - maybe yes, maybe not (depending if DD1 gets into the school or not)! Question for prh47bridge: would you recommend submitting the nurcery application as soon as possible or shall we rather wait until April to see if DD1 is in school and then we've got a stronger case based on siblings priority? Many thanks!

It depends on the timetable that the nursery uses for admissions. You must not miss the deadline for applying for a place at the nursery or they will probably put you at the back of the queue regardless of sibling priority. However, if the deadline allows you to submit after you've got the offer of a place for your older child it may be worth delaying.

I've had many a converstation at toddler groups where grannies have said that their grandchildren attend the school because they 'live' with them for the relevant year.

Isn't this illegal? Permanent residence is pretty tightly defined, and doesn't include 'living' in this way. Of course, if every night the child sleeps at granny's, and spends as much time there as they would in the parental home, fine.

I'd report all the bloody grannies and free up the spaces!

Evil

Note that it is not a question of making the SCHOOL stop the cheating, it is a broader matter than that and should concern the LA. If that fails, you might try this, although its jurisdiction is limited, but you can certainly argue the admitting authority is not applying its admissions criteria fairly.

You are correct. The address used when applying must be the address at which the child actually lives. Using a relative's address is not acceptable. If the LA finds that this has happened they can put the child concerned at the back of the queue for places. They can also withdraw any offer that has been made on the basis of the false address. Indeed, they can take the place away even after the child concerned has started school, although this will normally only happen in the child's first term.

Thanks for your comment. Well, regarding the deadline, I was under the impression that the deadline (which by now had passed anyway) was for children due to start nursery in Sep 2011. At least, that's what was in our local council's brochure - if your child's birthdate is up to Aug 2008, you must apply before the deadline. As my DD2's birthday falls after the cut-off, she would only be eligible to start in the following term i.e. Jan 2012 (subject to place availability, of course). I rang the school and they advised I should apply before the deadline if possible, but I didn't think it applied to my DD2's case. now I'm having second thoughts, so I've got the school application form, but if I fill it out with the information I've got so far (i.e not knowing if DD1 is going to be in that school or not), I feel I'm back to square one. what do other mums think?

Audrey,
This all depends for me on the sentence 'children who have a sibling in attendance at the school at the time of enrolment of the new pupil'.
My definition of enrolment would be the point at which the new pupil starts at the school, which would be september at the earliest. However realistically the nursery does have to hand out the places before September. So they either abide by their "time of enrolement" and in effect have to take at face value offers accepted by pupils for reception in september and accept they are counted as siblings or they do what they have done. They have come up with their own definition of how it will operate that actually is not what the wording says.
What it needs to say is something like "siblings who are already attending the school at the time of allocation of places."
So if your elder child gets a place in reception at the school to start in September you may well have a case for saying that the nursery allocation is faulty. However I don't know what appeal process there is for nurseries because I do not think it comes under the normal admission appeal process.

Thanks Admission. We will most likely submit our application as soon as possible, so that they have my DD2 in the system, and then come April we will call them again to update our status. In any case, I was told DD2 may not have a place if the Sep 2011 intake is completely full.