Reception Admissions 2023/24

Reception Admission Arrangements for 2023/24

Parents/Carers must apply for a Reception place for their child through the Local Authority website:
https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/schooladmissions

Please note that children who have a place in our Nursery do not automatically move into our Reception classes. 

Application deadline for 2022/23 admissions is on 15th January 2022.

 The places for September 2022 will be issued by the Local Authority on 19th April 2022.

About our Academy

Oasis Academy Short Heath is an academy where all young people are given the opportunity they deserve to make excellent progress and fulfil their full potential. Oasis Academy Short Heath is a fully inclusive Primary academy, accepting children of all abilities, of any faith or none.

Admission number(s)

The school has a published admission number of 60 for entry in Reception. The school will accordingly admit this number of students 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 for a place in Reception class for September 2022

Arrangements for applications for places to Reception at the Academy will be made in accordance with Birmingham LA co-ordinated admission arrangements and will be made online.

Birmingham residents can apply online by visiting Birmingham LA website:

https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/

Residents live outside of Birmingham must make an application to their home Local Authority (where they pay their Council Tax).

The deadline to apply is 15 January 2022. Those applicants that have applied on time will be sent an email from Birmingham LA on 19 April 2022 informing them of which school their child has been offered.

Children with an Education Health and Care Plan

Any child with an Education Health and Care Plan/statement of special educational needs is required to be admitted to the school that is named in the statement. This gives such children overall priority for admission to the named school. This is not an oversubscription criterion.

Oversubscription criteria and Tie Break

When the school is oversubscribed priority for admission will be given to those children who meet the criteria set out below, in priority order:

1. 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 order.

2. Sibling in the Academy.

3. Distance from Oasis Academy Short Heath.

Within each of these categories, priority is given to those who live nearest the academy, calculated on the basis of a straight-line measurement between home and the main entrance of the academy.

Late applications

All applications received by Birmingham 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.

For more information on late applications, please visit Birmingham LA’s website:

https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/

In Year Applications

Applications made outside the normal admissions round (in-year admissions) should be made directly to the academy no matter which Local Authority you reside in. Parents/carers can apply for a place for their child at any time and to any academy. On receipt of an in-year application, the academy will notify the local authority of both the application and its outcome, to allow the local authority to keep up to date with figures on the availability of academy places in Birmingham.

The In Year Application form can be obtained from the Birmingham Local Authority Website:

In Year Applications

Deferred entry

Parents must, by law, ensure that their child is receiving suitable full time education from the beginning of the term following the child’s fifth birthday, when they will have begun to be of compulsory school age.

Where a place is offered in the school, the pupil will be entitled to take up that place, on a full- time basis in the September following their fourth birthday.

A child’s parents may defer the date at which their child, below compulsory school age, is admitted to the school, until later in the school year but not beyond the point at which they reach compulsory school age and not beyond the first day of the summer term 2023.

A child may take up a part-time place until later in the school year, but not beyond the point at which the child reached compulsory school age.

Upon receipt of the offer of a place a parent should notify the school, as soon as possible, that they wish to either defer their child’s entry to the school or take up a part-time place.

The parent of a child whose fifth birthday falls during the summer term who wishes to defer their child’s admission until the beginning of the following academic year (when the child will have begun to be of compulsory school age) will therefore need to make a separate in-year application for a place in Year 1 at the school.

Any reception class place offered following an application made for the 2022/2023 admission round will be withdrawn if the child does not take up that place by the first day of the summer term 2023.

Admission of children outside their normal age group

Parents have the right to request, but not insist that their child be considered for admission to a class outside of their normal age group. This could be the case, for example, if a child is gifted and talented, has experienced problems such as ill health, or that the child is summer born, i.e. a child born between 1st April and 31st August. Parents who wish for their child to be considered for admission to a class outside of their normal age group must make an application for the normal age group in the first instance. Parents must then submit a formal request to the Academy Trust for the child to be considered for a different age group class instead. This request should be in the form of a written letter of application outlining the reasons why they wish for their child to be considered to be admitted into a class outside of their normal age group and enclosing any supportive evidence and documentation that they wish to be taken into account as part of that request.

The Academy Trust will consider requests submitted for a child to be admitted into a class outside of their normal age group and advise parents of the outcome of that request before national offer day, having taken into account the information provided by the parents, the child’s best interests and the views of the Principal.

If the request is refused, the original application for the normal age group class will progress through the Local Authority co-ordinated admissions scheme, be considered by the Academy Trust and the parents advised of the outcome.

If the request is agreed and the year group for which the parents have requested a place is a current year group in the school, then the application will be considered by the Academy Trust and the parents advised of the outcome.

If the request is agreed and the year group for which the parents have requested a place is for a future year group, i.e. Reception in September 2023, then the original application is withdrawn and the parents must submit a fresh application for Reception 2023 when applications open in the autumn term of 2022. Please note that parents only have the right to re-apply for a place. Where the Academy Trust agrees to consider an application for Reception the following year, that application is considered alongside all other applications received and parents will be advised of the outcome of that application on national offer day. No place is reserved or held for the child in advance.

If parents are considering submitting an application for their child to be admitted into a class outside of their normal age group, it is strongly recommended that they also read the DFE guidance which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/summer-born-children-school-admission

Waiting lists

The waiting list for the Reception intake for Oasis Academy Short Heath is held and maintained by Birmingham LA until 31 July 2022. The Academy will then maintain the waiting list from 1 August 2022 onwards up until at least the 31 January 2023.

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.

Appeals are administered by Birmingham Local Authority for Oasis Academy Short Heath.

Parent/carers should visit www.birmingham.gov.uk/schooladmissions to appeal against the decision to refuse their child admission.

Notes/Definitions

Looked After and Previously Looked After Children:

A Looked After Child is a child who is in the care of a local authority or is being provided with accommodation by a local authority as set out in s22(1) of the Children Act 1989. A Previously Looked After Child is a child who immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, special guardianship or child arrangement order.

In the case of previously looked after children, admission authorities may request a copy of the adoption order, child arrangement order or special guardianship order and a letter from the local authority that last looked after the child confirming that he or she was looked after immediately prior to that order being made.

Sibling:

Siblings (brothers or sisters) are considered to be those children who live at the same address and either:

• have one or both natural parents in common;

• or ii. are related by a parent’s marriage;

• or iii. are adopted or fostered by a common parent.

  Unrelated children living at the same address, whose parents are living as partners, are also considered to be siblings.

  Children not adopted or fostered or related by a parent’s marriage or with one natural parent in common, who are brought together as a family by a same sex civil partnership and who are living at the same address, are also considered to be siblings.

  Distance:

  Distances are calculated on the basis of a straight-line measurement between the applicant’s home address and the main entrance of the Academy. The Local Authority uses a computerised system, which measures all distances in metres. Ordnance Survey supply the co-ordinates that are used to plot an applicant’s home address and main entrance of the academy.

  Final Qualifier

  In a very small number of cases it may not be possible to decide between the applications of those pupils who are the final qualifiers for a place, when applying the published admission criteria.

  For example, this may occur when children in the same year group live at the same address, or if the distance between the home and academy is exactly the same, for example, blocks of flats. If there is no other way of separating the application according to the admissions criteria and to admit both or all of the children would cause the Published Admission Number for the child’s year group to be exceeded, the Local Authority will use a computerised system to randomly select the child to be offered the final place.

  In the event of this occurring with twins or other multiple birth applicants, academies will be admit over their Published Admission Number to accommodate the pupils.

Home address:

A pupil’s home address is considered to be a residential property that is the child’s only or main residence and is either;

• Owned by the child’s parent(s), or the person with parental responsibility for the child;

• Leased to or rented by the child’s parent(s), or the person with parental responsibility under lease or written rental agreement of not less than twelve months duration.

  Evidence of ownership or rental agreement may be required, plus proof of permanent residence at the property concerned.

  Parents who are unable to provide proof of permanent residence should contact Birmingham Local Authority or Oasis Short Heath Academy to discuss providing other acceptable proof of address.

  Where parents have shared responsibility for a child, and the child lives with both parents for part of the week then the main residence will be determined as the address where the child lives the majority of the week. Parents may be requested to supply documentary evidence to satisfy the authority that the child lives at the address put forward by the parents.

  If a place is offered on the basis of an address that is subsequently found to be different from a child’s normal and permanent home address, then that place will be withdrawn.

Please contact Mrs Allen or Mrs Hayes on:

e: info@oasisshortheath.org    t: 0121 373 6056