ADMISSIONS
ADMISSIONS
If you would like your child to attend our school, please contact our school office to arrange a visit. As well as applying to the Wigan school admissions, a school supplementary form must be completed. A copy of this can be obtained from school or downloaded HERE.
If you would like to arrange an in-year school transfer to our school, you must ring Wigan council admissions on 01942 489013.
To view information about admissions from Wigan Council, click HERE.
Holy Family Catholic Primary School is a Catholic School in the trusteeship of the Diocese of Salford. It is maintained by Wigan Council and is a voluntary aided school. The Governing board is the admissions authority and is responsible for taking all decisions on applications for admissions. The co-ordination of admissions arrangements is undertaken by the Local Authority.
For the school’s year commencing September 2024, the governing board has determined that the number of children to be admitted to Reception will be 20.
The school’s role is to participate in the mission of the Catholic Church by providing a curriculum, including Catholic religious education and worship, which will help children to grow in their understanding of the Good News and in the practice of their faith. The school will help the children develop fully as human beings and prepare them to undertake their responsibilities as Catholics in society. The school requires all parents applying for a place here to understand and respect this ethos and its importance to the school community. This does not affect the rights of parents who are not of the Catholic faith to apply for a place here.
Admissions to the school will be determined by the governing board. Parents must complete a Local Authority Preference Form or apply online via the website www.wigan.gov.uk/Resident/Education/Schools/School-Admissions/Primary-schools.aspx
If there are fewer than 20 applications, all applicants will be offered places. If there are more applications than the number of places available, the following oversubscription criteria will be applied:
Oversubscription Criteria:
Baptised Catholic Looked After Children, Baptised Catholic previously Looked After Children and Baptised Catholic Children who appear to the Local Authority to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care because they were adopted.
Baptised Catholic children who have a sibling in the school at the time of admission.
Baptised Catholic children resident in the parish of Holy Family
Looked After Children, previously Looked After Children and Children who appear to the Local Authority to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care because they were adopted.
Other children who have a sibling in the school at the time of admission.
Other Baptised Catholic Children.
All remaining applicants.
If it is not possible to offer places for all applications within any criterion above, priority will be given to those living closest to the school measured by a straight line from the child’s home address to a central point at the school using a Geographical Information System (GIS) which is based on ordnance survey. In the event of distances being the same for 2 or more applicants, places will be allocated by a system to randomly pick who will be offered a place. A copy of the policy is available on request from the local authority.
a. All applications will be considered at the same time and after the closing date for admissions which is 15th January 2021. Applications received after this date will be treated as a late application and will not be considered until after the main allocation of places has taken place.
b. 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 under section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989. A previously Looked After Child is one who immediately moved on from that status after becoming subject to an adoption, residence or special guardianship order.
c. For a child to be considered as a Catholic evidence of a Catholic Baptism or reception into the Catholic Church is required. Written evidence of reception into the Catholic Church can be obtained by referring to the Register of Receptions, or in some cases a sub-section of the Baptismal Registers of the Church in which the Rite of Reception took place. If, for example, a child has been baptised in the Church of England and the parents are subsequently admitted to the Catholic Church through the RCIA programme, the child must also be admitted to the Church by the Rite of Reception.
The governing board will require written evidence in the form of a Certificate of Reception before applications for school places can be considered for categories of ‘Baptised Catholics’. A Certificate of Reception is to include full name, date of birth, date of reception and parent(s) name(s). The certificate must also show that it is copied from the records kept by the place of reception.
Those who have difficulty obtaining written evidence of baptism for a good reason, may still be considered as baptised Catholics but only after they have been referred to the parish priest who, after consulting with the Director of Education or officers of the DDFE will decide how the question of baptism is to be resolved and how written evidence is to be produced in accordance with the law of the Church.
d. Home Address is considered to be the address where the child normally lives. Where care is split and a child moves between two addresses, the household in receipt of the child benefit would normally be the address used but the admission authority body reserves the right to request other evidence as fit the individual circumstance. Applicants should not state the address of another relative or person who has daily care of the child.
e. ‘Sibling’ is defined in these arrangements as full, half or stepbrothers and sisters, adopted and foster brothers and sisters who are living at the same address and are part of the same family unit. This does not include cousins or other family relationships.
f. A waiting list for children who have not been offered a place will be kept and will be ranked according to the admission criteria. The waiting list does not consider the date the application was received or the length of time a child's name has been on the waiting list. This means that a child's position on the list may change if another applicant is refused a place and their child has higher priority in the admissions criteria.
g. For ‘In Year’ applications received outside the normal admissions round, if places are available they will be offered to those who apply. If there are places available but more applicants than places then the published oversubscription criteria will be applied.
h. If an application for admission has been turned down by the Governing Board, parents may appeal to an independent appeals panel. Parents must be allowed at least twenty school days from the date of notification that their application was unsuccessful to submit that appeal. Parents must give reasons for appealing in writing and the decision of the appeals panel is binding on the governors.
i. The governing board reserve the right to withdraw the offer of a school place where false evidence is received in relation to the application.
j. It is the duty of governors to comply with regulations on class size limits for children aged between rising five and seven. The governing board may exceed the regulations for twins and children from multiple births where one of the children is the 20th child admitted. This also applies to in-year applicants who are looked after/previously looked after children of UK service personnel or children who move into the area for whom there is no other school available within a reasonable distance.
k. If a child is a “summer born child”, parents may request that the date their child is admitted to school is deferred to later in the school year. However, the child must start school before the end of that school year. If a parent wishes their child to be educated out of their normal school year (kept back a year), they must discuss this with the school before applying. However, the final decision on this rests with the headteacher.
l. Parents may request that their child attend school part-time until he/she reaches his/her fifth birthday.
IN YEAR APPLICATIONS INFORMATION
For ‘In Year’ applications received outside the normal admissions round, if places are available they will be offered to those who apply. If there are places available but more applicants than places then the published oversubscription criteria will be applied.
An application can be made for a place for a child at any time outside the admission round and the child will be admitted where there are available places. Application should be made to Holy Family Catholic Primary School by contacting the school office – 01942 246376 www.aspullholyfamily.co.uk
Parents will be notified of the outcome of their application within 10 school days, but no more than 15 school days of receipt of the application
Where there are places available but more applications than places, the published oversubscription criteria, as set out above, will be applied.
If there are no places available, the child will be added to the waiting list (see g above).
You will be advised of the outcome of your application in writing, and you have the right of appeal to an independent appeal panel.
If an application for admission has been turned down by the Governing Board, parents may appeal to an independent appeals panel. Parents must be allowed at least twenty school days from the date of notification that their application was unsuccessful to submit that appeal. Parents must give reasons for appealing in writing and the decision of the appeals panel is binding on the governors.
Admission arrangements
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