Admissions criteria for many Peterborough schools to change

Admission arrangements for community and voluntary controlled schools in Peterborough will be different for the 2020/21 academic year.

The order to allocate places when a school is over-subscribed will now see children who have previously been in state care outside of England be given second priority.

This follows a request from the Department for Education (DfE) which is planning to make it a legal requirement in the future.

Currently, children with a statement of special educational needs or an education health and care plan which names a school are given a place.

First priority for all other pupils is looked after children, or children who were looked after before being adopted.

Currently, this is followed by children who are both living in the catchment area served by the school and have siblings of compulsory school age still attending the school at the time of their admission.

However, that will now become the third priority.

The council said the proposed change follows a consultation which saw just one response.

It said: “The alternative considered was not to include this new criterion now but to wait for the legislation to change to make this a legal requirement, rather than a request from the DfE.

“It was felt that given the small numbers of children living in Peterborough that this criterion would affect, and the fact that it is clear that this would become a legal requirement in the near future, that we should implement this change at the earliest opportunity in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire.”

The primary schools in Peterborough which will be affected are:

. Barnack

. Braybrook

. Brewster Avenue

. Castor

. Dogsthorpe Infant

. Eye

. Hampton Hargate

. Hampton Vale

. Heritage Park

. Ken Stimpson

. Leighton

. Nene Valley

. Newborough

. Northborough

. Norwood

. Oakdale

. Old Fletton

. Paston Ridings

. Queen’s Drive Infant

. Southfields

. The Beeches

. The Duke of Bedford

. Welbourne

. Winyates

. Woodston.