Children with an Education, Health and Care Plan

Any child with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) is required to be admitted if Timberley Academy is named in their EHCP, this gives such children overall priority.  This is not an over-subscription criteria.

Criteria

1. Looked after or previously looked after children.

A ‘looked after child’ is a child who is (a) in the care of a local authority, or (b) being provided with accommodation by a local authority in the exercise of their social services functions (see the definition in section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989) at the time of making an application to a school.

A child is regarded as having been in state care in a place outside of England if they were accommodated by a public authority, a religious organisation or any other provider of care whose sole purpose is to benefit society (see Section 23ZZA(8) of the Children’s Act 1989 (inserted by Section 4 of the Children and Social Work Act 2017).

This includes children who were adopted under the Adoption Act 1976 (see Section 12 adoption orders) and children who were adopted under the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (see Section 46 adoption orders).

Child arrangement orders are defined in Section 8 of the Children Act 1989, as amended by Section 12 of the Children and Families Act 2014. Child arrangement orders replace residence orders and any residence orders in force prior to 22 April 2014 is deemed to be a child arrangements order.

Section 14A of the Children Act 1989, which defines a ‘special guardianship order’ as an order appointing one or more individuals to be a child’s special guardian (or special guardians).

1. Children with a brother or sister (sibling) already at the academy who will still be in attendance. 

Siblings are considered to be those children who live at the same address and either:

1. Have one or both natural parents in common;
2. Are related by a parent’s marriage;
3. Are adopted or fostered by a common parent.

           Unrelated children living at the same address, whose         

           parents are living as partners, are also considered to

           be siblings.  Children not adopted or fostered or

           related by a parent’s marriage or with one natural

           parent in common, who are brought together as a

          family by a same sex civil partnership and who are

          living at the same address, are also considered to be

          siblings.

1. Children who are attending the nursery at Timberley Academy.

1. Children who live nearest the Academy.  Distances are calculated on the basis of a straight-line measurement between the applicant’s home address and home and the academy’s front gate on Bradley Road. The Local Authority uses a computerised system, which measure all distances in metres.  Ordnance Survey supply the co-ordinates that are used to plot an applicant’s home address and the address of the academy.

Final qualifier

In a very small number of cases, it may not be possible to decide between the applications of those pupils who are the final qualifiers for a place, when applying the published admission criteria.

For example, this may occur when children in the same year group live at the same address, or if the distance between the home and academy is exactly the same, for example, blocks of flats.  If there is no other way of separating the application according to the admission criteria and to admit both or all of the children would cause the Published Admission Number for the child’s year group to be exceeded, the Local Authority will use a computerised system to randomly select the child to be offered the final place.

In the event of this occurring with twins or other multiple birth applicants, academies will be asked to admit over their Published Admission Number to accommodate the pupils.

Waiting Lists

Waiting lists will not be fixed following the offer of places.  They are subject to change.  This means that a child’s waiting list position during the year could go up or down.  Any applicants will be added to the academy’s list in accordance with the order of priority for offering places.  Waiting lists will be maintained until the end of each academic year.

In-year applications

Applications made outside the normal admission round (in-year admissions) should be made directly to the academy.  Parents/carers can apply for a place for this child at any time and to any academy.  On receipt of an in-year application, the academy will notify the local authority of both the application and its outcome, to allow the Local Authority to keep up to date with figures on the availability of academy places in Birmingham.

Appeals

If your child’s application for a place at the school is unsuccessful, you will be informed why admission was refused and given information about the process for hearing appeals. Appeals are administered by the Local Authority for this school. Parents who wish to appeal against the decision to refuse their child admission should visit www.birmingham.gov.uk/schooladmissions to complete an online appeal form. Appeals will be heard by an independent panel.