Timberley Reception Admissions

By law, you must ensure that your child is receiving suitable full-time education at the beginning of the term after their fifth birthday.

Admissions Criteria

Any child with a statement of special educational needs or Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC) is required to be admitted if Timberley Academy is named in the statement or EHC plan. This gives such children overall priority. This is not an oversubscription criterion.

1. Looked after children or previously looked after children.
2. Children with a brother or sister already at the academy who will still be in attendance in the September of the academic year you are applying for.
3. Children who have attended Timberley Academy Nursery.
4. Children who live nearest the Academy.

Definitions

Looked after or previously looked after children

Looked after children or children who were previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, residence or special guardianship order. This includes any child/young person who is subject to a Full Care Order, an interim Care Order, accommodated under Section 22(1) of the Children Act1989, is remanded or detained into local authority accommodation under Criminal Law or who has been placed for adoption. Birmingham City Council’s School

In the case of previously looked after children, a copy of the adoption order, residence order or special guardianship order and a letter from the local authority that last looked after the child confirming that he or she was looked after immediately prior to that order should be submitted with the application form.

Siblings

Siblings are children with a brother or sister already at the school who will still be in attendance at the time the sibling enters the school. Siblings (brothers or sisters) are considered to be those children who live at the same address and either:

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

Parent/carers and family members

A parent/carer is any person who has parental responsibility for, or is the legal guardian of the child. Where admission arrangements refer to ‘parents’ attendance at church’ it is sufficient for just one parent to attend. ‘Family members’ include only parent/carers, as defined above, and siblings.

Shared responsibility

Where parents have shared responsibility for a child, and the child lives with both parents for part of the week, the child’s main residence will be determined as the address where the child lives for the majority of the week. Parents may be requested to supply documentary

Distance

Distances are calculated on the basis of a straight line measurement between the applicant’s home address and the academy front gate on Bradley Road. Birmingham City Council uses a computerised system which measures all distances in metres. Ordnance Survey supplies the co-ordinates that are used to plot an applicant’s home address within this system.

Separating ’final qualifier’ applications

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 school is exactly the same, for example, blocks of flats. If there is no other way of separating the application according to the admissions criteria and to admit both, or all of the children, would cause the legal limit to be exceeded, the local authority will use a computerised system to randomly select the child to be offered the final place.

Appeals

Parents who wish to appeal against the decision of the governors to refuse their child a place in the school may apply in writing to Chair of Governors. Appeals will be heard by an independent panel.