Co-op Academy Florence MacWilliams Admission Arrangement September 2025

Policy details

• Date created - February 2024
• Next review date - February 2025

Contents

Introduction        3

Application process        3

Oversubscription criteria        4

Tie-break arrangements        4

Waiting list        5

Unsuccessful applications and the appeals process        5

In-year admissions        5

Introduction

Thank you for your interest in applying for a place at Co-op Academy Florence MacWilliams Academy. Florence is a new non-selective secondary free school, for children of all abilities and from all backgrounds.  The school is located in Meir, in Stoke-on-Trent, and will open in September 2024 to its founding cohort of Year 7 children.  The school will grow year on year until it has students aged 11-19 by 2030.

Florence is committed to ensuring that it serves local children from local schools. This policy sets out the admission arrangements for the academic year 2025/26. It applies to Year 7 applications for September 2025 as well as ‘in-year’ applications. It also includes details of the oversubscription criteria, waiting lists and the appeals process.

Admissions number - Florence’s Published Admission (PAN) number for Year 7 - 180

The school has an admission number of 180 for entry in Year 7. Accordingly, Florence MacWilliams Academy will admit this number of children if there are sufficient applications. Where fewer applicants than the published admission number for the relevant year group are received, Florence MacWilliams Academy will offer places at the school to all those who have applied.

Application process

Application Form. Our academy is part of Stoke-on-Trent City Council coordinated admissions process, and as such, allocation of places for Year 7 is completed by them according to the criteria set out below. All parent/carers are required to apply to their home Local Authority (LA) regardless of where the academy they are applying for is situated. For example Stoke-on-Trent residents will apply to Stoke-on-Trent City Council, whilst Staffordshire residents will apply to Staffordshire County Council. Our LA will liaise with other Admissions Authorities in Staffordshire and other LAs where required. Your home local authority will inform parents/carers in writing of the outcome of their application on 1st March or the next working day. Information on how to apply can be found here

https://www.stoke.gov.uk/info/20033/school_admissions

https://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/Education/Admissions-primary/Apply/Overview.aspx

Oversubscription criteria

If the number of applications received for any year group, or phase, is greater than the number of spaces available, places will be allocated according to the oversubscription criteria in the order below: The academy trust will admit any pupil with an Education, Health and Care plan which names Florence MacWilliams Academy.

1. Children looked after by a Local Authority (in accordance with section 22 of the Children Act 1989) and children who were previously looked after but ceased to be so because they were adopted or became subject to a child arrangements or special guardianship order. This includes those children who appear to the admission authority to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care because of being adopted.

2. Siblings of pupils attending the secondary phase of the school at the time of admission. ‘Sibling’ means a natural brother or sister, a half brother or sister, a legally adopted brother or sister or half brother or sister, a stepbrother or sister, or other child living in the same household who, in any of these cases, will be living with them at the same address at the date of their entry to the school. Children residing in the same household as part of an extended family, such as cousins, will not be treated as siblings.

3. Distance from home to school, where a child living closer to the school will be given priority for admission. Distance is measured using Geographic Information System known as GIS to identify and measure the distance in a straight line from the address point of an applicant’s home to the main entrance of Florence MacWilliams Academy.

Tie-break

If Florence MacWilliams Academy is unable to distinguish between applicants using the published oversubscription criteria, including those who live in blocks of flats within the same building, places will be offered via a random draw, which will be supervised by someone independent of the academy.

In the case of multiple births or siblings in the same year group, where there is only one place available in the academy, all will be considered together as one application.

Waiting List

A waiting list for Year 7 children is maintained by Stoke-on-Trent City Council as part of their co-ordinated admissions process. If your child is not offered a place in Year 7 at our academy on offers day, your child’s name will automatically be added to the waiting list for our school.

Your child’s name will remain on our waiting list until:

• You are offered a place at a higher preference school
• You are offered a place at our academy,
• The end of Year 7 (July).

You may re-apply for an in-year admission place in Year 8 if you are not allocated a place during Year 7 (please see the next section on In-Year Admissions). If no spaces are available at the time of application, you will be added to the in-year admissions waiting list for the appropriate year group.

Please note:

• Your child’s place on our waiting list is decided by the oversubscription criteria listed above.
• Each time a child is added or removed, the waiting list is ranked again and your child can move down if another child meets higher criteria.
• Looked after children, previously looked after children and those allocated a place at the school in accordance with a Fair Access Protocol take priority over those on a waiting list

Unsuccessful Applications and the Appeals Process

All applicants who have applied for a secondary place at the academy and been refused have a right to appeal that decision to an Independent Appeal Panel.

Applicants will be informed in writing of the academy’s decision to refuse their application; this letter will include:

• The reason a place was refused (e.g. no available places)
• Information about the waiting list
• Information about the right to appeal
• The deadline for submitting an appeal
• Contact details for making an appeal

In-year admissions

In-year admission applications made outside the normal admissions round should be made directly to Stoke-on-Trent local authority at the web address: www.stoke.gov.uk/info/20033/school_admissions. The Local Authority will then notify parents of the decision.