Faith school refusing place

[Coldilox]

Questioning on behalf of a local mum. They didn’t get any of their choices and weren’t happy with what was offered, so started looking around at others. A local Catholic school has 15 vacancies. Mum is a baptised Catholic, but does not practice, Chad is not baptised. They asked for a place and the school are not outright refusing but basically telling her that they won’t accept a non-baptised child, and telling her she should appeal her original choices instead.

Can they refuse a place? Other children (ie not Catholic) are in last position on their admissions criteria (number 8, just after other children that are in LAC or previously in LAC, nice!).

Thankyou Lougle

Thanks will pass all this on.

I think they had a bad ofsted recently which may explain low numbers. PAN is 45

So they have a class of 30 and 15 vacancies - that is why they don't want an extra - 30 is the maximum for one class.

Random but surely they can’t just decide to reduce PAN other than in advance of an admissions round?

Probably not but that is clearly what they wish to do now probably because it will save them ££££££

I think you are right that they can’t, coldilox but that probably won’t stop them trying to put people off applying. However, that’s their issue to sort out. If she likes the school and prefers it to the place she’s been offered then she might just have to put an application in and see what happens.

Nothing stopping her from doing that and appealing for the schools she originally applied for at the same time.

Thank you all

No, they can't. They have to publish changes to their PAN 2 years ahead of the admissions cycle.

Ooh, more info. They used to have a PAN of 45, but as of 4 years ago it has been 60. Been undersubscribed since. They consulted on reducing back to 45 for this year, but the response was to stay at 60. So they must have 45 pupils accepted with 15 vacancies. They are just trying to stick to the 45 that they want

Look up the school admissions adjudicator and see if that is any help.

Coronapop, will pass that on, thanks.

Getting more and more invested in this, even though nothing to do with me 😂

Whilst I’m constitutionally outraged by the idea of faith schools trying to exclude children who are legally entitled to a place, I’m slightly sympathetic as well. School budgets are on a knife edge and this could tip them over the edge if they can’t finesse it one way or another. In their position I’d be telling the BVM that Nazareth was out of our catchment.

It makes absolutely no difference whether or not the child lives in catchment. If the school is not full up to PAN it must, by law, offer a place to anyone who applies (School Standards and Framework Act 1998 S86(5)).

I’m quite invested and it’s even less to do with me.

If you’re 100% sure that there are exactly 15 spaces, that would seem to be a massive coincidence. The chances that the number of children and were offered a place exactly matches the number that they wanted to reduce the PAN to must be quite small.

I suspect your friend is probably not the only parent who’s been told that the school won’t accept their child.

Friar Of course they'll be bottom of the list. They prioritise Catholics (being a Catholic school!), children with siblings there already and children who've had a shit time in life. As it should be. If they were that fussed they should have prioritised their religion....

imo (as an adopter, so biased) the Christian thing to do would be to recognise that LAC/ex-LAC children have been massively disadvantaged, and if their current carer thinks that the catholic school is the best place for them they should be prioritised over and above others. These are state funded schools after all.

CofE schools tend to prioritise all LAC children. However, the Admissions Code allows faith schools to put LAC who do not meet the faith criteria behind all children who do meet the faith criteria. Many Catholic churches take advantage of this. I would be in favour of changing the Admissions Code so that LAC always trumps faith criteria.

The school have obviously worked out a plan for the various classrooms that involves only 45 being admitted to reception. That will entail having a reception class of 30 and a mixed reception / year 1 class containing 15 reception children.
However they are illegal and as others have said they have to take all who apply for a place.
As the OP has made some comments about there having been a consultation about reducing to 45 PAN but it not being accepted I wonder whether this is the school being belligerent in just doing what they want or whether there is a genuine belief that they are only admitting to 45. The comments about not accepting non-faith pupils would suggest it is definitely the former in which case the LA needs to be telling the school what the rules are not sitting on the fence

Thanks again everyone. I gave her contact details for somebody in admissions who I’ve found very helpful, and funny there is some movement, they are going to impose a directive on the school saying they must accept the child as they have vacancies.

*now there is some movement

Not sure where funny came from