If you would like your child to start at Westcourt Primary & Nursery School, please contact the school office on 01474 566411 or by email admin@westcourt.kent.sch.uk the office staff will be able to advise you as to available spaces in school and give you help and advice on applying.

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Over Subscription Criteria

 

The OSC are reasonable, clear, objective, procedurally fair, and compliant with all relevant legislation. The OSC do not unfairly disadvantage, whether directly or indirectly, any child based on a protected characteristic or economic disadvantage. Where there are more applications than places available, the school will apply the following oversubscription criteria, in this order:

 

1. Looked after children and previously looked after children Children in public care (looked after children) or children who were previously in public care immediately before being adopted or subject to a residence order or special guardianship order. Children adopted outside England, internationally adopted previously looked after children (IAPLAC), are given equal first priority alongside looked after children and previously looked after children.

 

2. Siblings Siblings of children who will be attending Westcourt Primary & Nursery School at the time the child is due for admission to the school. This priority does not include brothers or sisters due to transfer to secondary school in the next academic year. For this priority, brother or sister includes a full brother or sister, adopted brother or sister, or step/ half brother or sister living at the same address. Where in an allocation of places, children who are twin, triplets or from other multiple births would qualify for fewer places than the number of children, all will be treated as siblings and therefore accorded the sibling priority.

 

3. Hardship This is given where either the disability or medical condition of a parent or sibling or exceptional social or domestic circumstances would result in significant hardship if the child did not attend the school nearest to home, nearest to the place of work of the parent not suffering the condition, or convenient to the family's child-minder. Requests for this priority must be made with supporting evidence at the time of application. Each request will be considered individually by a panel of Governance Partners.

 

4. Children of Employees of The School Children who live with parents who are employees of the school provided that the employee has been employed by the school for a minimum of 2 years at the date of application or to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable shortage and have a permanent contract.

 

5. Distance Children living closest to the school, based on the distance measured as a straight line from the home address to the nearest pupil entrance – pedestrian gate at the front of the school. Measurements will be provided by Kent County Council in accordance with its home to school distance measuring policy. Home will be taken as the address at which the child lives with the parent or legal guardian who is also the main carer, defined as the parent eligible to receive child benefit and child tax credit, at the time of application.

 

6 Where two applications cannot otherwise be separated, the trust will follow a fair, clear and effective ‘tie-breaker’ procedure. In the event of any of the above criteria being oversubscribed, priority will be given based on distance as described above with those closest being given higher priority. In the unlikely event that two or more children in all other ways have equal eligibility for the last available place at the school, the names will be issued a number and drawn randomly to decide which child should be given the place.

In Year Admissions

If a parent wishes to transfer their child from another school without moving home, the school will contact the child’s current school to confirm the child’s situation and learn about the individual child so that our school is able to offer the correct support should the child be offered a place. It is also expected that the parent/carer of the child, along with the child themselves when appropriate, visit our school before any place will be offered. The school will provide the Local Authority of any vacancies within 48 hours of the Local Authority requesting the information. Westcourt Primary & Nursery School admissions process: • Notify parents of application outcomes within 15 school days of application receipt • Notify the LA of application outcomes within two days of outcome decision • Start children who have been offered places promptly after they have been offered

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 Kent County Council Schools Admissions Team within the given time frame (approximately 30 days from the letter refusing admission) to lodge an appeal. The appeals process is run in accordance with the statutory processes and timescales set out in the School Admissions Appeals Code.