Can you help me translate this admission criteria please?

[cma25]

"Oversubscription Criteria Places will be allocated to pupils who have a EHC Plan that names the school as the appropriate provision. When there are more applications for places than there are places available, priority will be given in the following order:

a) Looked After Children and all previously Looked After Children (see paragraph 5.19.1 for definition of ‘Looked After Children’).
b) Children of staff where that 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 the member of staff is recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable skill shortage in the area. (Demonstrable skill shortage will only normally apply to qualified teacher positions, where the school has continually been unable to recruit) (see paragraph 5.19.4 for definition of ‘children of staff’).
c) Children who have a sibling link (See paragraph 5.19.3 for definition of ‘sibling’).
d) Children who live in the linked area (see below for definition of ‘linked area’). e) Other children based on the distance between the home address and school (see below for definition of ‘distance’) with priority being given to those who live closest to the academy.

Tiebreaker If the published Admission Number is exceeded within criterion (b), (c) or (d) all places within that criterion will be allocated at random in the priority order listed above. The random allocation will be generated electronically and will be verified by an independent observer to guarantee fairness. If the published Admission Number is exceeded within criterion (e) , in the case where the distances from home address to school address point are the same (for example, multiple applications for the same shared dwelling occurs i.e. flats), a randomiser will be used to decide the priority in which pupils are selected. The random allocation process will be subject to independent verification."

It is the sibling link I am interested in. I am confused as to whether c still trumps d. The school is always massively oversubscribed, I'm confused by the tiebreaker random allocation bit. When they inevitably go to the tiebreaker and randomly allocate, will the children in c still trump d? Sorry if this is a stupid question, it's the "all places within criterion" that is confusing me, as if they have a limit in each section? Siblings usually take up half of the PAN, but I heard this year some siblings didn't get places, and we don't understand why.

Assuming your dc meets the sibling link criteria(they may need to be admitted and attending at a specific date, living at same address for example ) under c they would be offered a place ahead of children under d. However if within c applications are already in excess of spaces available a random allocation of places among those in c will take place. So potentially not all under c are offered a place but none in d e f etc.

Take a primary school with 30 places.
If their applications are:
5 EHCP/looked after/staff children,
30 sibling applications
40 catchment applications
then they'll draw lots and 25 of the 30 siblings will get places but no catchment children.

If their applications are:
5 EHCP/looked after/staff children,
20 sibling applications
40 catchment applications
then all of the siblings will get a place, and a random 5 out of the 40 catchment applications will get a place

@LIZS thanks so much for replying, I'm really sorry to sound daft, I'm confused as to what situation would mean someone is c isn't offered a space but someone in d would be? If there are 180 spaces, and say 90 siblings, presumably they fill up say 100 spaces with a-c kids, and then randomly allocate from those in d to fill up, and go to e if they fill up with all the other sections first??

@WakeMeUpWhenGoodOmensIsBack thank you that's what I thought it was, panicking slightly as have heard some siblings didn't get places this year, I'm not sure how the allocations looked but I'd be surprised if 180 was a-c alone.

You need to read the "sibling link" definition. That may explain it.

They met the sibling criteria (as do we)

I read it as @WakeMeUpWhenGoodOmensIsBack does however I think the drafting makes it unnecessarily difficult to follow and so I quite see why you are unclear. And personally I would want to be double checking it with the admissions authority before relying on that reading.

I would check the sibling link definition carefully as it may not be as binary as the words in (c) might suggest on first blush. For example for a council near me if you move more than a certain distance away after admission of the first child, you lose sibling priority.

@NowYouSee thank you, I appreciate you saying it's not clear as I was worried I was being daft! Sorry I am back on my phone without the criteria to hand but the sibling criteria seems pretty straightforward for those living at the same address with the same parents, no mention of location, it then just defines step siblings etc and there is a bit about the age of the eldest and being on roll when the youngest would start etc. As far as I'm aware the families I know that did not get a place did meet the criteria fully (same situation as us) but I wouldn't know all the ins and outs, I eagerly await the outcome of their appeals from a distance! (Not knowing them that well).

c trumps d. If there are more applicants that meet criteria c than there are places, they'll pick at random. No d applicants would get a place in that situation.

It's a bit unusual. Most LAs use distance as the tie breaker within criteria.

If a sibling who met the criteria for category c did not get in, and had made an on time application, then no children in category d should have been offered a place.

I have heard of a situation where child in cat c wasn't offered a place when d were. It turned out that the parents had missed the deadline (they got in on wait list)

Thank you, I don't know the ins and outs of the applications so whilst outwardly they meet the criteria there could be something else going on like a late application. I will try to put it to the back of my mind!

The random allocation is clearly referring to the tie breaker within a category.

If there's space for all applicants in a category they are all admitted before thr next category is looked at.

If there are more applicants in a category than there are after places are allocated to higher categories then allocation is random within that category.

A category (d) would not trump a category (c) but if there are too many (c)s then you may lose the lottery.

(C) trumps (d). If there aren’t enough places to offer a place to everyone in (c), names will be drawn out of an electronic hat.

Also - in most areas sibling priority only counts if the sibling will still be at the school the follwing academic year - so if the sibling is currently yr11 or yr13 then the applicant does qualify for catergory C.

Thanks everyone, fingers crossed a-c is less than 180 places then! We won the lottery getting our eldest in being only d so I'm really hoping the odds are more in our favour to get our youngest comfortably in!

@SaffyWall thank you yes they mention that in the policy, that will be fine for us as eldest will be going into Y10 although did make me realise we won't have any sibling benefit for the sixth form for youngest (but I think we will for eldest if I read correctly).

sixth form is not so dependant on sibling priority as most schools have a minimum academic standard that need to be acheived in GCSE exams in order to study at sixth form.

Make sure you are checking the correct policy for the year in which you want to apply. Have you moved house since DC1 got in? Worth checking there is no annex mentioning siblings must continue to live within catchment - linked area. Also, will DC 1 remain in school when younger one starts?

@LadyLapsang thanks for your reply, we haven't moved (nor plan to) and eldest will be going into Y10 the term youngest starts, so I'm comfortable we meet the sibling criteria no problem, it's just trying to decipher that siblings continue to have priority over location (although I should add we meet the location requirements too)