DIOCESAN EDUCATION SERVICE
BIRMINGHAM 2024/25 SECONDARY ADMISSION POLICY
Holy Trinity Catholic School
TIMELINE PRIMARY TO SECONDARY SCHOOL TRANSFERS TO HOLY TRINITY CATHOLIC SCHOOL
Holy Trinity Catholic School is part of the St Teresa of Calcutta MAC. The admissions authority for the school is the Board of Directors of the St Teresa of Calcutta MAC who has responsibility for admissions to this school. The Board of Directors has delegated responsibility for the administration of the admissions process to the Local Governing Body of Holy Trinity Catholic School.
The admissions process for Holy Trinity Catholic School is part of the Birmingham Local Authority coordinated admissions scheme. To apply for a place at Holy Trinity Catholic School in the normal admissions round, an application must be made using the school admission application process of the local authority in which you live naming Holy Trinity Catholic School on the application form. Applications need to be made by 31st October 2023. A Supplementary Information Form (SIF) must also be completed and returned directly to the school by the same date (see Note 2).
All applications which are submitted on time will be considered at the same time, after the closing date.
You will be advised of the outcome of your application on 1st March 2024, or the next working day, by the local authority on behalf of the school.
Please note that throughout this policy, the term parent means all natural parents, any person who is not a parent but has parental responsibility for a child and any person who has care of a child.
The ethos of this school is Catholic. The school was founded by the Catholic Church to provide education for children of Catholic families. Whenever there are more applications than places available, priority will be given to Catholic children in accordance with the oversubscription criteria listed below. The school is conducted by its Board of Directors as part of the Catholic Church in accordance with its Articles of Association and seeks at all times to be a witness to Our Lord Jesus Christ.
As a Catholic school, we aim to provide a Catholic education for all our pupils. At a Catholic school, Catholic doctrine and practice permeate every aspect of the school’s activity. It is essential that the Catholic character of the school’s education be fully supported by all families in the school. We therefore hope that all parents will give their full, unreserved and positive support for the aims and ethos of the school. This does not affect the right of an applicant who is not Catholic to apply for and be admitted to a place at the school in accordance with the admission arrangements.
The Local Governing Body acts for the Board of Directors who is the admissions authority and has responsibility for admissions to this school. The Local Governing Body has set its admission number at 151 pupils to be admitted to Year 7 in the school year which begins in September 2024. (See Note 1 below)
Where there are more applications for places than the number of places available, places will be offered according to the following order of priority. If there is oversubscription within a category, the Local Governing Body will give priority firstly to children who will have a brother or sister (see Note 4 below) attending Holy Trinity Catholic School at the time of admission and then secondly to children living closest to the school determined by the shortest distance (see Note 6 below).
Oversubscription Criteria for Years 7-11
1. Baptised Catholic children (see Note 2 below) who are looked after or previously looked after (See Note
3 below).
2. Baptised Catholic children (see Note 2 below) currently attending a named feeder school (see Note 5
below).
3. Baptised children who currently live in the parish area of a designated Catholic feeder school, who are
not currently attending the designated Catholic feeder school (see note 5 below).
4. Other Baptised Catholic children (see note 2 below).
5. Non-Catholic children who are looked after or previously looked after (See Note 3 below).
6. Non-Catholic children currently attending a named feeder school (see note 5 below).
7. Other Non-Catholic children.
Note 1
Children with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan that names the school MUST be admitted. This will reduce the number of places available to applicants. This is not an oversubscription criteria.
Note 2
In all categories, for a child to be considered as Catholic, evidence of Catholic Baptism or Reception into the Church will be required. For a definition of a Baptised Catholic, see the Appendix. Those who face difficulties in producing written evidence of Catholic Baptism or Reception into the Church should contact their Parish Priest.
Parents making an application for a Catholic child should also complete a Supplementary Information Form (SIF) which should be returned directly to the school. If you do not provide the information required in the Supplementary Information Form and return it by the closing date, together with all supporting documentation, this is likely to affect the criteria that your child is placed into, which is likely to affect your child’s chance of being offered a place at this school.
For the purposes of this policy, a looked after child living with a family where at least one of the carers is Catholic will be considered as Catholic. The carer must forward a copy of their own Catholic Baptismal or Reception certificate directly to the school in order for this priority to be given to the child as failure to do so will result in the looked after child being ranked as a non-Catholic.
Note 3
A “looked after child” has the same meaning as in section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989, and means any child who is (a) in the care of the local authority or (b) being provided with accommodation by them in the exercise of their social services functions (eg children with foster parents) at the time of making the application to the school. A “previously looked after child” is a child was looked after, but ceased to be so because he or she was adopted or became subject to a child arrangements order or special guardianship order and includes those children who appear (to the Local Governing Body) to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state case as a result of being adopted. For the purposes of this policy, a looked after child living with a family where at least one of the carers is Catholic will be considered as Catholic. The carer must forward a copy of their own Catholic Baptismal or Reception certificate directly to the school in order for this priority to be given to the child as failure to do so will result in the looked after child being ranked as a non-Catholic.
Note 4
For all applicants the definition of a brother or sister is:
· A brother or sister sharing the same parents
· A half-brother or half-sister, where two children share one common parent
· A step-brother or step-sister, where two children are related by a parents’ marriage or civil partnership, or where they are unrelated but their parents are living as partners
· Adopted or fostered children
Note 5
The named feeder schools for Holy Trinity Catholic School are:
Holy Family Catholic Primary School, The Rosary Catholic Primary school and St Vincent’s Catholic Primary
School.
The parish areas are:
Holy Family, Small Heath; Our Lady of the Rosary, St Therese of Lisieux, Saltley and St Vincent de Paul,
Ashted and Vauxhall.
Note 6
Distances are calculated on the basis of a straight-line measurement between the child’s home address and the front gate at Oakley Road. The Local Authority uses a computerised system, which measures all distances in metres. Ordnance Survey supplies the co-ordinates that are used to plot a child’s home address and the address of the school.
In a very small number of cases, where the school is oversubscribed, 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 the school 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, on behalf of the Local Governing Body, will use a computerised system to randomly select the child to be offered the final place.
The Local Governing Body will, where possible, admit twins and all siblings from multiple births where one of the children is the last child ranked within the school’s published admission number.
A child’s home address refers to the address where the child usually lives with a parent or carer and will be the address provided in the Local Authority’s Common Application Form.
Where parents have shared responsibility for a child, and the child lives for part of the week with each parent, the home address will be the address provided in the Local Authority’s Common Application Form, provided that the child resides at that address for any part of the school week.
Parents may be requested to supply documentary evidence to satisfy the Board of Directors that the child lives at the address put forward by the parents.
If a place in the school 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 is liable to be withdrawn.
APPLICATIONS FOR CHILDREN TO BE ADMITTED INTO A CLASS OUTSIDE OF 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 is already being educated in a class outside of their normal age group at their current Primary school. 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 Local Governing Body 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 Local Governing Body 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 Head Teacher.
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 Local Governing Body 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 Local Governing Body 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, ie Year 7 in September 2025, then the original application is withdrawn and the parents must submit a fresh application for Year 7 2025 when applications open in the autumn term of 2024. Please note that parents only have the right to re-apply for a place. Where the Local Governing Body agrees to consider an application for Year 7 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
APPEALS
Parents who wish to appeal against the decision of the Local Governing Body to refuse their child a place in the school should make that appeal request in writing to the Chair of the Local Governing Body at the school address. Appeals will be heard by an independent panel.
Please note that parents do not have the right to appeal if their request for their children to be admitted to a class outside of their normal year group has been refused, but the Local Governing Body have offered a place in the normal age group instead.
REPEAT APPLICATIONS
Any parent can apply for a place for their child at any time outside of the normal admissions round. Parents do not have the right to a second appeal in respect of the same school for the same academic year unless, in exceptional circumstances, the Local Governing Body has accepted a second application from the parent because of a significant and material change in the circumstances of the parent, child or school, but have still refused admission.
LATE APPLICATIONS
Late applications will be dealt with in accordance with the Local Authority’s co-ordinated admissions scheme. This states that in exceptional circumstances applications submitted to Birmingham local authority after the final closing date, but before the date that Birmingham local authority forwards the applications to the appropriate admission authority for consideration, may be considered at the same time as those which were received by the final closing date. Discretion will be used when considering the individual circumstances. For example where:
- There were exceptional reasons which prevented the parent from applying by the closing date.
- A child and the parent have moved home.
- Where the parent has been contacted regarding the information contained within their application, for example, an incomplete application or potentially misleading information requiring further
investigation.
All late applications received after the date that Birmingham local authority forwards the applications to the school to appropriate admission authority for consideration, but before the offer of places, will only be considered after those applications which were received on time have been considered. Such applications may therefore be less likely to be offered a place. All late applications received after the offer of places will be considered. In the event that Holy Trinity Catholic School is undersubscribed, a place will be offered. Applications made on or after the start of the Autumn Term 2024 will need to be submitted directly to the school and will be treated as an in-year application.
You are encouraged to ensure that your application is received on time.
CHANGE IN PREFERENCE
Parents can submit changes of preferences from 1st September 2023 up until the closing date 31st October 2023 and the family’s latest change in preferences up until the closing date will be the application that is processed. Any late changes of preferences received after 31st October 2023 no matter the family’s circumstances, will not be processed until after the offer of places on 1st March 2024 (or the next working day). Parents in Birmingham are restricted to a maximum of six live preferences at a time, it is therefore important that parents visit www.birmingham.gov.uk/schooladmissions for further information of the implications of making late changes of preferences.
WAITING LIST
In addition to their right to appeal, children who have not been offered a place at Holy Trinity Catholic School but were offered a school that was ranked as a lower preference on their application form will be added to a waiting list.
The waiting list will be maintained until the last day of the summer term 2025 and will then be discarded.
A child’s position on a waiting list is not fixed. When a new child joins the waiting list, all applicants on that waiting list will be re-ranked to ensure that the list is always maintained in oversubscription criteria order. This means that a child’s position on the waiting list could go up or down during the time that it is on the list. Any late applications accepted will be added to the waiting list in accordance with the oversubscription criteria.
Inclusion on the waiting list does not mean that a place will eventually become available. It may be that those already offered places may accept them, thereby filling all available places.
Children on the waiting list who attend a named feeder school (see Note 5 above) who have not been offered a place in the school by the beginning of the Autumn term 2024 will be re-ranked to take into account that they will no longer be attending that feeder school from 1st September 2024. This will affect the oversubscription criteria that your child is placed into on the waiting list from 1st September 2024.
Children who are the subject of a direction by the Local Authority to admit or who are allocated to a school in accordance with the Fair Access Protocol take precedence over those on a waiting list.
IN YEAR FAIR ACCESS PROTOCOL
The Local Governing Body of Holy Trinity Catholic School is committed to taking its fair share of children who are vulnerable and/or hard to place, as set out in locally agreed protocols. Accordingly, outside the normal admission round the Local Governing Body is empowered to give absolute priority to a child where admission is requested under any locally agreed protocol. The Local Governing Body has this power, even when admitting the child would mean exceeding the published admission number.
APPLICATIONS OTHER THAN THE NORMAL INTAKE TO YEAR 7 (IN-YEAR ADMISSIONS)
An application can be made for a place for a child at any time outside the normal admission round and the child will be admitted where there are places available. Further information regarding instructions on how to apply for a place in the school at any other time other than the normal intake is available on the school’s website.
To apply for a place at Holy Trinity Catholic School in-year, parents will be required to complete Birmingham Local Authority’s In-Year Application Form and return it directly to the school, ensuring that any required supplementary information is also attached.
If there are no places available, the child will be added to the waiting list (see above).
Parents will be advised of the outcome of their application in writing and, where the Board of Director’s decision is to refuse their child a place, have the right to appeal to an independent appeal panel.
There is no charge or cost related to the admission of a child to this school.
DEFINITION OF A “BAPTISED CATHOLIC”
A “Baptised Catholic” is one who:
- Has been baptised into full communion (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 837) with the Catholic Church by the Rites of Baptism of one of the various ritual Churches in communion with the See of Rome. Written evidence of this baptism can be obtained by recourse to the Baptismal Registers of the church in which the baptism took place (Cf. Code of Canon Law, 877 & 878).
Or
- Has been validly baptised in a separated ecclesial community and subsequently received into full communion with the Catholic Church by the Rite of Reception of Baptised Christians into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church. Written evidence of their baptism and reception into full communion with the Catholic Church can be obtained by recourse to the Register of Receptions, or in some cases, a sub-section of the Baptismal Registers of the church in which the Rite of Reception took place (Cf. Rite of Christian Initiation, 399).
WRITTEN EVIDENCE OF BAPTISM
The Governing bodies of Catholic schools and Boards of Directors of Catholic Academies will require written evidence in the form of a Certificate of Baptism or Certificate of Reception before applications for school places can be considered for categories of “Baptised Catholics”. A Certificate of Baptism or Reception is to include: the full name, date of birth, date of Baptism or Reception, and parent(s) name(s). The certificate must also show that it is copied from the records kept by the place of Baptism or Reception.
Those who would have difficulty obtaining written evidence of Catholic Baptism/Reception for a good reason, may still be considered as Baptised Catholics but only after they have been referred to their parish priest who, after consulting the Vicar General, will decide how the question of Baptism/Reception is to be resolved and how written evidence is to be produced in accordance with the law of the Church.
Those who would be considered to have good reason for not obtaining written evidence would include those who cannot contact the place of Baptism/Reception due to persecution or fear, the destruction of the church and the original records, or where Baptism/Reception was administered validly but not in theParish church where records are kept. Governors and Boards of Directors may request extra supporting evidence when the written documents that are produced do not clarify the fact that a person was baptised or received into the Catholic Church,
(i.e. where the name and address of the Church is not on the certificate or where the name of the Church does not state whether it is a Catholic Church or not.)
For the purposes of this policy, a looked after child (see Note 3) living with a family where at least one of the parents/carers is Catholic will be considered as Catholic.
