If you would like your child to attend our school, please see full details of our admission arrangements below.

Making an application

Applications for admission to the school for September 2025 should be made on-line at www.lancashire.gov.uk (search for School Admissions) between 1st September 2024 and 15th January 2025. It is not normally possible to change the order of your preferences for schools after the closing date. Parents must complete the Local Authority electronic form, stating three preferences.

Emails informing parents of whether or not their child has been allocated a place will be sent out by the Local Authority on 17th April 2025. Parents of children not admitted will be informed of the reason, and offered an alternative place by the Authority.

Admission procedures

Arrangements for admission have been agreed following consultation between the Governing Body, Local Authorities and other admissions authorities in the area.

The number of places available for admission to the Reception class in the year 2025 will be a maximum of 60.

The Governing Body will not place any restrictions on admissions to the reception class unless the number of children for whom admission is sought exceeds their admission number. By law, no infant class may contain more than thirty children.

The Governing Body operates a system of equal preferences under which they consider all preferences equally and the Local Authority notifies parents of the result. In the event that there are more applicants than places, after admitting all children with an Educational and Health and Care Plan naming the school, the Governing Body will allocate places using the criteria below, which are listed in order of priority.

1. Looked after children or a child who was previously looked after, but immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, child arrangement order, or special guardianship order or those children who appear to the school to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted, then

2. Children for whom the Governing Body accepts that there are exceptional medical, social or welfare reasons which are directly relevant to the school concerned, then

3. Children with older siblings attending the school when the younger child will start (Siblings refers to full, half, adopted, step, foster children or the child of the parents partner, and in every case, the child must be living in the same family unit at the same address), then

4. Children that attend Lostock Hall Community Primary Pre-School for 5 terms (as a rising star) or those that attend for a full academic year, then

5. Remaining places are allocated according to where a child lives. Those living nearest to the preferred school by a straight line (radial) measure will have priority.

Tiebreak

Where there are more applicants for the available places within a category, then the distance between the Ordnance Survey address points for the school and the home measured in a straight line will be used as the final determining factor, nearer addresses having priority over more distant ones. This address point is within the body of the property and usually located at its centre. Where two addresses have the same distance, or the cut-off point is for addresses within the same building, then the Governing Body system of a random draw will determine which address(es) receive the offer(s).

Late applications for admission

Where there are extenuating circumstances for an application being received after the last date for applications, and it is before the governors have established their list of pupils to be admitted, then it will be considered alongside all the others. Otherwise, applications which are received after the last date, will be considered after all the others, and placed on the waiting list in order according to the criteria.

Waiting list

Where we have more applications than places, the admissions criteria will be used. Children who are not admitted, will have their name placed on a waiting list. The names on this waiting list will be in the order resulting from the application of the admissions criteria. Since the date of application cannot be a criterion for the order of names on the waiting list, late applicants for the school will be slotted into the order according to the extent to which they meet the criteria. Thus it is possible that a child who moves into the area later to have a higher priority than one who has been on the waiting list for some time. If a place becomes available within the admission number, the child whose name is at the top of the list will be offered a place. This is not dependent on whether an appeal has been submitted.

This waiting list will operate until 31^st December of the relevant year.

It is the responsibility of the parent/guardian to inform school of their continued interest in securing a place in the future.

Address of pupil

The address used on the school’s admission form must be the current one at the time of application, i.e. the family’s main residence. If the address changes subsequently, the parents should notify the school. Where the parents live at different addresses, and there is shared parenting, the address used will normally be the one where the child wakes up for the majority of Monday to Friday mornings. If there is any doubt about this, then the address of the Child Benefit recipient will be used. Parents may be asked to show evidence of the claim that is being made for the address, e.g. identity cards of various sorts showing the child’s address as the one claimed. Where there is dispute about the correct address to use, the governors reserve the right to make enquiries of any relevant third parties, e.g. the child’s GP, Council Tax Office, Electoral Registration Officer, utilities provider. For children of UK Service personnel and other Crown Servants returning to the area proof of the posting is all that is required.

Non-routine or in-year admissions

In-year admission 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 will be treated as an in-year application.

The in-year admission process is managed by the school. Parents are required to complete the in-year application form, which is available from the school website.

Where a place cannot be secured, parents will be offered a legal right of appeal to an independent appeal panel.

Lancashire County Council administers the appeals process on behalf of the school. Parents can complete the school’s appeal form on Lancashire County Council’s website.

Appeals for routine admissions

Where the governors are unable to offer a place because the school is oversubscribed, parents have the right to appeal to an independent admission appeal panel, set up under the School Standards and Framework Act, 1998, as amended by the Education Act, 2002. Parents should notify the clerk to the governors at the school by 30th April, 2023. Parents will have the opportunity to submit their case to the panel in writing and also to attend in order to present their case. You will normally receive 14 days’ notice of the place and time of the hearing.

Appeals which are received after the deadline will be slotted into the schedule where this is possible. There is no guarantee that this will happen and late appeals may be heard after the stipulated date at a second round of hearings. The schedule is subject to change depending upon the availability of appeal panel members, clerks, venues and the number of appeals for each school (which will vary year on year). Please note that this right of appeal against the governors’ decision does not prevent you from making an appeal in respect of any other school.

Fraudulent applications

Where the governing body discovers that a child has been awarded a place as the result of an intentionally misleading application from a parent (for example a false claim to residence in the catchment area) which effectively denies a place to a child with a stronger claim, then the governing body is required to withdraw the offer of a place. The application will be considered afresh and a right of appeal offered if a place is refused.

Deferred admission

If your child is due to start school during the next academic year, it is important that you apply for a place for September. If your child’s fifth birthday is between the months of September and December, then, if you wish it, admission may be deferred until January; if it is between January and April, then admission may be deferred until the start of the summer term though it is likely to be in your child’s interest to start no later than January. You may also request that your child attend school part time until he/she reaches his/her fifth birthday.

Admission of children outside of their normal age group

Parents may seek a place for their child outside of their normal age group, for example, if a child is gifted and talented or has experienced problems such as ill health. In addition, the parents of a summer born child may choose not to send that child to school until the September following their fifth birthday and may request that they are admitted out of their normal age group – to reception rather than year 1.

The Governing Body will make decisions on the basis of the circumstances of each case and in the best interests of the child concerned. This will include taking account of the parent’s views; information about the child’s academic, social and emotional development; where relevant, their medical history and the views of a medical professional; whether they have previously been educated out of their normal age group; and whether they may naturally have fallen into a lower age group if it were not for being born prematurely. They will also take into account the views of the head teacher of the school.

When informing a parent of their decision on the year group the child should be admitted to, the Governing Body will set out clearly the reasons for their decision.  

If the Governing Body agrees to a parents’ request for their child to be admitted out of their normal age group and as a consequence of that decision the child will be admitted to a relevant age group (i.e. the age group to which pupils are normally admitted to the school) the local authority and Governing Body will process the application as part of the main admissions round, unless the parental request is made too late for this to be possible, and on the basis of their determined admission arrangements only, including the application oversubscription criteria where applicable. The Governing Body will not give the application lower priority on the basis that the child is being admitted out of their normal age group. Parents have a statutory right to appeal against refusal of a place at a school for which they have applied. This right does not apply if they are offered a place at the school but it is not in their preferred age group.

Twins, etc.

Where there are twins, etc. wanting admission and there is only a single place left within the admission number, then the governing body will exercise as much flexibility as possible within the requirements of infant class sizes. In exceptional circumstances cases we are now able to offer places for both twins and all triplets, even when this means breaching infant class size limits.