Two hundred and forty places and, on last year's figures, about a hundred and fifty families who will not get one. The whole rule is published before anybody applies.
Applications for grade one open on the first of October and close at half past two on the twentieth. There are two hundred and forty places. Last year there were three hundred and ninety one applications.
That means this school will refuse about a hundred and fifty families, and the only honest way to do that is to publish the rule before anybody applies rather than explaining it afterwards to people who are upset.
The order of priority, in full. First, children living in the catchment streets, which are listed at the office and on this site and have not changed this year. Second, children with a brother or sister already in the school. Third, children of members of staff. Fourth, everybody else, in the order applications were received, which is why every acknowledgement has the receipt time printed on it.
The question we are asked every year. Why does the catchment beat a sibling? Because a school that filled on siblings first would, within a few years, have no places at all for families moving into these streets, and a child living four doors from the gate would be sent across the city while a place went to a family who had moved away and kept a foothold. The order was debated at two association meetings before it was adopted and it has been left alone since.
What to bring. The birth record, the immunisation card, and proof of the address: a tenancy paper or a utility bill in the name of somebody in the household. A letter from a relative is not proof and will not be accepted. Addresses are checked, about six a year are found to be wrong, and a place obtained on a wrong address is withdrawn. That has happened and it will happen again, and every place taken falsely is taken from a family who does live here.
The waiting list. Published in order by application number rather than by name, so you can see where you are. It moves: twenty two children came off it last year, mostly in the first month of term.
And the session. Grade one is in the afternoon, ten to one until twenty past five. If you already have a child in the morning session you may ask for your grade one child to be placed in the morning too, and about sixty families are in that arrangement, with a waiting time of roughly a term.
