Admissions | St Oswalds Catholic Primary School

School Admissions Policy

Download: Admission Policy and Arrangements 2025-2026 [PDF]
Download: Admission Policy and Arrangements 2024-2025 [PDF]
Download: Admission Policy and Arrangements 2023-2024 [PDF]
Download: Admission Policy and Arrangements 2022-2023 [PDF]

Please see the information below about our admissions procedures and also this external link to Local Authority guidance: http://liverpool.gov.uk/admissions

Nursery & Reception Admissions (September 2024)

There are places currently available in Nursery, Nursery (30 hours) and Reception for this year and September 2024.

Please contact the school office 0151 228 8436 or email office@st-oswalds.liverpool.sch.uk for more information.

If you have received a letter from Liverpool City Council offering your child a place in Reception at St Oswald’s then please click here to complete our online response form

About Our School

St Oswald’s is a Catholic School under the trusteeship of the Archdiocese of Liverpool. It is maintained by Liverpool City Council. As a Voluntary Aided School, the Governing Body is the Admissions Authority and is responsible for taking decisions on applications for admissions. The co-ordination of admissions arrangements is undertaken by the Local Authority. For the school’s current school year, the Governing Body has set its admissions number at 90.

Our principal role as a Catholic school is to participate in the mission of the Catholic Church by providing a framework 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 Catholic in society. The school asks all parents applying for a place here to respect this ethos and its importance to the school community. This does not affect the rights of parents who are not of the faith of this school to apply for and be considered for a place here.

Admissions to the School

ADMISSIONS TO THE SCHOOL will be determined by the Governing Body. Parents must complete a Local Authority Preference Form or apply online via the website www.liverpool.gov.uk/admissions. If you wish to have your application to be considered against that school’s faith/denomination criteria then you should ALSO complete the Supplementary Form which is available from the school. All preferences listed will be considered on an equal basis and, where there are more applications than the number of places available, the following set of OVERSUBSCRIPTION CRITERIA will be applied:

1. Looked After Children and previously Looked After Children.
2. Baptised Catholic children who have a sibling in the school at the time of admission.
3. Baptised Catholic children resident in the parish of St Oswald.
4. Other baptised Catholic children.
5. Other children who have a sibling in the school at the time of admission.
6. Children from other Christian denominations. Proof of Baptism in the form of a Baptismal Certificate or confirmation in writing that the applicant is a member of their Faith community from an appropriate Minister of Religion is required.
7. Children of other faiths. An appropriate Faith Leader would need to confirm in writing that the applicant is a member of their faith group.
8. Other children.

If it is not possible to offer places for all applications within any criteria above then places will be allocated to the children who live nearest to the school. The distance will be measured by straight line distance between the child’s permanent home address and the school using the local authority’s computerised measuring system.

Children with a Statement of Special Educational Needs or Education Health Care Plan that names a school will be offered place without using the admission criteria and will count as part of the school’s published admission number.

Notes:

a. All applications will be considered at the same time and after the national closing date. Applications received after that date will be treated as late applications 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, child arrangements order or special guardianship order.

c. For a child to be considered as a Catholic evidence of a Catholic Baptism is required. Baptism should take place before the closing date for applications. A Baptised Catholic can also be defined as one who has been baptised by the Rites of Baptism of one of the various Churches in communion with the See of Rome (cf Catechism of the Catholic Church 1203). Written evidence of this baptism can be obtained by recourse to the Baptismal Registers of the church in which the baptism took place.

A person who has been baptised in a separate ecclesial community and subsequently received into full communion with the Catholic Church by the Rite of Reception of Baptised Christians into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church. Written evidence of their reception into full communion with the Catholic Church can be obtained by recourse 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. The Governing Body 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 Episcopal Vicar, 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 body reserve the right to request other proofs as fit the individual circumstance. Applicants should not state a childminder’s or other relative’s address.

e. Sibling is defined in these arrangements as full, half or step brothers 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. The waiting list will be retained until at least the end of December of the relevant year of the admissions process.

g. For ‘In Year’ applications received outside the normal admissions round, if places are available they will be offered to those who apply. Direct application to the school can now be made under this heading. If there are places available but more applicants than places then the published oversubscription criteria will be applied. A waiting list for those who have not been offered a place will be kept until the end of the relevant academic term.

h. In-year admissions is the process of applying for a school place during the school year. Any applications for the intake made after the start of the autumn term (on or after the first day of term of the admission year) will be treated as an in-year application. The in-year application process can be applied differently by Local Authorities and should be checked with the Local Authority in which the school is placed.

Where a place cannot be secured, parents will be offered a legal right of appeal to an independent appeal panel – this may be managed either by the Local Authority or by the Archdiocese of Liverpool (Please contact the Archdiocese for further advice https://www.liverpoolcatholic.org.uk/department/education/admissions-and-appeals)

i. The Governing Body 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 at Foundation Stage and Key Stage One. The Governing Body may exceed the regulations for twins and children from multiple births where one of the children is the 30th 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 can request that the date their child is admitted to school is deferred to later in the school year. However, the child has to 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 decision on this rests with the school (para 2.17 of the Admissions Code).

l. Parents may request that their child attend school part-time until he/she reaches his/her fifth birthday.

PARENTS MUST COMPLETE A LOCAL AUTHORITY PREFERENCE FORM/ON-LINE APPLICATION AND SHOULD, IF APPLYING UNDER ANY OF THE FAITH CRITERIA, COMPLETE A SCHOOL SUPPLEMENTARY FORM.

The information on this page is taken from our Admissions Policy