Admissions

Millside Spencer Academy observes local authority admissions protocols, with priority given to children with special educational needs or additional support requirements; and increasingly, from within the broader Spencer family of schools.

Information on applying for a place through the Nottinghamshire County Council’s Admissions Scheme is available here.

A copy of the school Admissions Policies are available here.

The Admissions Policy includes detailed information on the applications process; the special consideration given to applications on behalf of children with special education needs and support requirements; and the criteria used when the school is over-subscribed.

Introductory Statement

Millside Spencer is a primary academy which aspires to provide an outstanding educational experience for local children.

Admission number(s)

The school has an admission number of 30 for entry in Reception and Year 1 for 2023-24. All other year groups have an admission number of 15 this year.

The school will accordingly admit this number of pupils if there are sufficient applications. Where fewer applicants than the published admission number(s) for the relevant year group are received, the Academy Trust will offer places at the school to all those who have applied.

Application process

The academy will be responsible for admission decisions but applications will be processed by the local authority as part of the co-ordinated admissions process. This means that you will need to complete your home LA common application form for this school as well as other preferences of school.

Applications for reception places at this school for pupils who live in Nottinghamshire should be made online at www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/admissions or by telephone on 0300 500 8080. For pupils who live outside Nottinghamshire applications should be made via the home Local Authority. For applications to all other year groups, parents should contact Nottinghamshire County Council on 0300 500 80 80.

The closing date for applications is 15 January 2023.

Offers will be made on 17 April 2023. If we have not entered into a funding agreement with the Secretary of State opening the school by that date, they will be conditional offers and will be confirmed once we have a signed funding agreement.

Oversubscription criteria

When the school is oversubscribed, after the admission of pupils with an Education, Health and Care plan naming the school, priority for admission will be given to those children who meet the criteria set out below, in priority order:

Looked after children and children who were previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to adoption, a child arrangements order, or special guardianship order1 as well as children who appear (to the admission authority) to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted^[2]
Children who live in the catchment area (map available on school’s website) at the closing date for applications and who, at the time of admission, will have a sibling attending the school
Children who live in the catchment area at the closing date for applications
Children who live outside the catchment area and who, at the time of admission, will have a sibling attending the school
Other children

Tie-break

Within each criterion, the child living closest to the central point of the new school will be given priority. Distances will be measured from this central point to an address point (using eastings and northings as defined by Ordnance Survey) to the child’s home using Nottinghamshire County Council’s computerised distance measuring software. In the event of two distances being equal, lots will be drawn by the LA to decide who will be admitted.

The drawing of lots will not be applied to multiple birth siblings (twins and triplets etc.) from the same family tied for the final place. We will admit them all, as permitted by the infant class size rules and exceed our PAN.

Late applications

All applications received by the LA after the deadline will be considered to be late applications. Late applications will be considered after those received on time. If, following consideration of all applicants the school is oversubscribed, parents may request that their child is placed on the school’s waiting list.

Deferred entry for infants

Parents offered a place in reception for their child have a right to defer the date their child is admitted, or to take the place up part-time, until the child reaches compulsory school age. Places cannot be deferred beyond the beginning of the final term of the school year for which the offer was made.

Children reach compulsory school age on the prescribed day following their 5th birthday (or on their fifth birthday if it falls on a prescribed day). The prescribed days are 31 August, 31 December and 31 March.

Admission of children outside their normal age group

Parents may request that their child is admitted outside their normal age group. To do so parents should include a request with their application, specifying why admission out of normal year group is being requested and the year group in which they wish their child to be allocated a place.

When such a request is made, the academy trust will make a decision on the basis of the circumstances of the case and in the best interests of the child concerned, taking into account the views of the headteacher and any supporting evidence provided by the parent.

Waiting lists

The school will operate a waiting list for each year group. Where the school receives more applications for places than there are places available, a waiting list will operate until the end of the first term after the beginning of the school year. This will be maintained by the Academy Trust and it will be open to any parent to ask for his or her child’s name to be placed on the waiting list, following an unsuccessful application.

Children’s position on the waiting list will be determined solely in accordance with the oversubscription criteria. Where places become vacant they will be allocated to children on the waiting list in accordance with the oversubscription criteria. The waiting list will be reordered in accordance with the oversubscription criteria whenever anyone is added to or leaves the waiting list..

Appeals

All applicants refused a place have a right of appeal to an independent appeal panel constituted and operated in accordance with the School Admission Appeals Code.

Appellants should contact newschool@satrust.com within 20 school days of the refusal letter for information on how to appeal. Information on the timetable for the appeals process is on our website at http://millsidespencer.com

Notes

Home address:

The home address is where a child normally lives. Where a child lives with parents with shared parental responsibility, each for part of a week, the address where the child lives is determined using a joint declaration from the parents stating the pattern of residence. If a child’s residence is split equally between both parents, then parents will be asked to determine which residential address should be used for the purpose of admission to school. If no joint declaration is
received where the residence is split equally by the closing date for applications, the home address will be taken as the address where the child is registered with the doctor. If the residence is not split equally between both parents then the address used will be the address where the child spends the majority of the school week.

Sibling:

‘Sibling’ means a natural brother or sister, a half brother or sister, a legally adopted brother or sister or half-brother or sister, a step brother or sister or other child living in the same household as part of the same family who, in any of these cases, will be living at the same address at the date of their application for a place.

Looked After Children:

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 (see the definition in Section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989).

A child is regarded as having been in state care outside of England if they were in the care of or were accommodated by a public authority, a religious organisation, or any other provider of care whose sole or main purpose is to benefit society.

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