In Year Admission Applications

Information on making decisions on in-year admission applications.

1. During the last school year, the Admissions Team processed over 9000 in year admission applications along with processing the three phase transfer admission rounds. Given those numbers the Admissions Team is limited both legally and operationally in what information they can provide schools as part of the admission process.

2. The School Admissions Code states that the local authority "should aim to notify the parents of the outcome of their application in writing within 10 school days, but they must be notified in writing within 15 school days. Where an application is refused, the admission authority must also set out the reason for refusal and information about the right to appeal."

3. There are only two lawful grounds upon which a school can refuse an admission request:

   • Where the school is full in the relevant year group: OR
   • Where the school does not wish to admit the child because it has good reason to believe that the child may display challenging behaviour and the year group has a particularly high proportion of either children with challenging behaviour or previously permanently excluded pupils on roll compared to other local schools.

4. A school cannot refuse an admission for any of the following reasons:

   • Poor attendance record
   • Concerns at school's ability to meet needs.
   • Pupil not living in catchment.
   • Concerns on the child's SEND.
   • Known parental behaviour.
   • Safeguarding concerns.

5. The Admissions Team does not hold nor can obtain information on behaviour so the onus is on schools to make enquiries about this if the school has a year group that is particularly challenging and may therefore want to refuse a child with challenging behaviour.

6. The Admissions Team will often just make enquiries about spaces in a school when dealing with multiple applications and may not share names of individual applicants. Where schools have a year group that is of a particular concern they can ask for the names of applicants and copies of the application forms to enable them to make enquiries about behaviour.

7. Although the School Admissions Code does not permit a school take account of reports from previous schools about children's past behaviour, attendance, attitude, or achievement when making admission decisions, footnote 78 of the Code permits the sharing of behaviour information only to enable schools to make decisions about challenging behaviour. (Paragraph 3.10 and 3.11 of the School Admissions Code applies.