Apply to start school

• About this service
• Who can use it?
• How do I use it?
• What happens next?
• Policy

About this service

Starting school for the first time is an exciting time for both parents and children. We want to ensure that the process of finding a place at your child's first school is as trouble free as possible.

If we know about your child, and he or she is eligible to start school in September 2012, we will have sent you a letter and a flyer informing you of how to make your school place application. If you are new to Somerset and have not received a letter:

• please phone us on 0845 4564038 and we will send you one, or
• download a copy of the guide.

The guide has lots of information on all you need to know about applying for your child's first school place including an application form.

Information on deferring your child's start at school until the start of the spring term, delaying their start for more than one term and staggered entry to school can be found in the Primary Admissions - A Guide for Parents Booklet.

Who can use it?

Children starting school are normally expected to join in the September following their fourth birthday, so children born between 1 September 2007 and 31 August 2008 are entitled to start school in September 2012.

How do I use it?

There are three main steps to apply for a school place:

Step One Please read the Primary Admissions booklet carefully. When you are happy that you understand the admissions procedure, choose up to three schools you would like your child to attend.

Step Two Complete either the online or paper application form.

Step Three If you are applying online, you must submit the form by 11.59pm on 15th January 2012. If you are posting it to us, send it to The School Admissions Team, Children and Young People’s Directorate, Somerset County Council, County Hall, Taunton TA1 4DY. It must be submitted by 15th January 2012. If you are applying for a place in a school outside Somerset, make sure it gets to us by that local authority's published submission date. Submission dates for our neighbouring authorities are shown below.

Bath & North East Somerset - 15th January 2012  
Dorset - 15th January 2012
North Somerset 15th January 2012
Somerset 15th January 2012*
Wiltshire 15th January 2012
Devon - 15th January 2012

* Somerset - online applications must be received by 11.59pm and paper copies must be submitted by 15th January 2012. We cannot consider applications submitted after 15th January 2012 (unless there are exceptional circumstances) as on-time applications. Therefore, you will not receive your outcome on 20th April 2012 in this instance. We will consider these as late applications. You can find more information on this in the guide.

Supplementary Information Forms

If you are providing supporting evidence for your school place application such as proof of regular church attendance for example, you will need to provide it on a Supplementary Information Form (SIF).

Voluntary Controlled Schools have a standard SIF which is available to dowload on the right hand side of the page.

Voluntary Aided and Foundation schools have their own SIF's which you can access by clicking on the link below and choosing the school you wish to apply for. 

Supplementary Information Forms

All SIF's must be returned to the Local Authority no later than 31st January 2012. If we do not receive it by this date, your application will not be considered under this criteria.

What happens next?

We will write to you to let you know the outcome of your application. Letters will be posted second class on   20th April 2012. On this date, if you have applied on-line you will be sent an e-mail with the outcome of your application and you will also be able to log in and view the result online.

Every school has a legal published Admission Number (AN) applicable to the year of entry, which is the maximum number of places available in the year group concerned. The Admission Number is set to maximise parental preference within the resources available and to ensure that there are sufficient school places across the local area enabling the education service as a whole to be run efficiently and effectively.

All Admission Authorities are required to take appropriate account of a school’s published Admission Number when allocating school places and will not normally admit more children than there are places available within the Admission Number.

We will allocate places at Somerset schools using the ‘Equal Preference with Ranking’ method. This is a national model adopted by the majority of Local Authorities and is designed to ensure as far as possible, parents/carers preferences for particular schools are considered fairly, equitably and consistently.

The Equal Preference with Ranking allocation method requires the Admissions Authority to consider all preferences (1st, 2nd and 3rd) equally in accordance with the over subscription criteria. Where more than one preference can be met we will offer the highest ranking preference.

Unfortunately, at some schools, there will not be enough places for all the children whose parents would like them to go there. When all places have been allocated up to the Admission Number, the Admission Authority may refuse any further requests. The reasons for refusal will include:

• to admit another child would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources
• to admit another child would mean the introduction of a ‘qualifying measure’ in order to comply with infant class size legislation.

The Admission Numbers for September 2012 admissions are shown in the list of schools in the centre of the Primary Admissions Guide.

If a school is under-subscribed, places can be offered to all applicants. If a school is over-subscribed, the over-subscription criteria for that school is applied to determine which children can be offered places. Different over-subscription criteria will apply, depending on the type of school:

• for Community and Voluntary Controlled schools, the LA over-subscription criteria will apply.
• for Voluntary Aided, Academies and Foundation schools, the governors will apply their own published over-subscription criteria.

You can find more information on the over-subscription criteria for all Somerset schools in the Primary Admissions Guide.

Policy

You can find full details of the policy around school admissions in this document:

Admission Arrangements 2011/12;

• Somerset Admission Arrangements 2011/12 (external link)
• Somerset Voluntary Aided and Foundation School Admission Arrangements 2011/12 (external link)

Admission Arrangements 2012/13;

• Somerset Voluntary Aided, Academy and Foundation School Admission Arrangements 2012/13 (external link) 
• Somerset Admission Arrangements 2012/13 (external link)