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Admissions For Year 5

Admissions for the start of Year 5 is conducted by the Admissions Department at the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead.

or contact:
 

School Admissions
RBWM
Town Hall
St Ives Road
Maidenhead
SL6 1RF
Tel.:  01628 683870
Email:   rbwm.admissions@achievingforchildren.org.uk


Key Dates


Admissions Arrangements for 2024/2025 entry

Windsor Learning Partnership (the school Trust) will comply with the requirements of the Funding agreement and the School Admissions Code and recognises that its ‘relevant area’ is the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

 

A.    Number of Places & Applications

The number of Year 5 places available for September 2025 entry (the 2025/2026 school year) will be 180.  If you are a parent resident in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, applications for September 2024 entry should be made via the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead co-ordinated admissions scheme (for more details see the ‘school admissions’ section of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council website, www.rbwm.gov.uk).  If you are a parent resident outside the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead application should be made through your home Local Authority’s Admissions Scheme. 

 

B.    Admissions Over-subscription Criteria

If there are fewer applications than there are places available for Year 5 entry in September 2025, everyone who applies will be offered a place.

Children who have an Education, Health and Care Plan or Statement of Special Educational Needs which names the school will be allocated a place at the school in accordance with their statutory entitlement.

 

If there are more applicants than there are places available after the admission of students with an Education, Health and Care Plan or Statement of Special Educational Needs naming the school, the following criteria will be considered, in order, to determine who will be offered a place:

  1. Children who are Looked After or were previously Looked After – A ‘looked after child’ or a child who was previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, residence, child arrangements order, or special guardianship order. (See Note 1)
  2. Children with exceptional medical or social reasons for requiring the school – Where the parent or carer can demonstrate wholly exceptional medical or social requirement for attendance at Dedworth Middle School and that attendance at no other school will suffice. (See Note 2)
  3. Children who live in the ‘designated appropriate area’ AND who have a sibling at the school at the time of application and who is expected still to be on roll at the school at the time of admission. (See note 3 for home address, note 4 below for definitions of ‘designated appropriate area’ and note 5 for the definition of sibling)
  4. Children living in the ‘designated appropriate area’ of the school. (See note 4 below for definitions of ‘designated appropriate area’)
  5. Children who have a sibling at the school at the time of application and who is expected still to be on roll at the school at the time of admission. (See note 5 below for definition of sibling)
  6. Children who attend a feeder school – all Windsor First schools, Wraysbury Primary School or Datchet St Marys Primary School.
  7. Children whose parents have selected the school for co-educational reasons when the local alternative is a single sex school.
  8. All other applicants.

 

Tie-breakers: If more applications are received in any one criterion than there are places available the following tiebreaker will be used:

  • Priority will be given to those applicants who live closest to the school. The distance will be measured in a straight line from the address point of the student’s house as determined by Ordnance Survey to the address point of the school using Local Authority’s GIS system.  In the event of two or more children living at the same distance from the school then random allocation will be used to prioritise applicants where necessary.  The names will be drawn and the whole process scrutinised by persons who are independent of the Academy Trust.

 

Children of multiple births: In cases where there is only one place available at the school and the next child on the waiting list is one of a twin, triplet or other multiple birth group, both twins (or all the siblings in the case of other multiple births) would be admitted, even if this meant that the school would admit in excess of the admission number.

 

C.   Notification and Acceptance of Places

In accordance with the co-ordinated admissions policy, on 3rd March 2025 The Local Authority will make the formal offer of a place to parent or carers on behalf of the School Trust.

The onus is on parents to contact the Local Authority by their specified date to either accept or decline the offer of a place, using the acceptance form issued with the offer letter.  This will in no way affect parents’ right to appeal for a place at another school.  The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council will write to all parents who have not accepted or declined an offer giving them a further seven days.  If no response is received a further letter will be sent to advise that the place has been withdrawn.  Unaccepted places will be allocated to other applicants.

 

D.    Appeals Procedure

Parents can choose to appeal against the decision of the school trust not to offer their child a place at the school.  Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council administer any admissions appeals on behalf of the school trust.  To appeal against the decision not to offer their child a place, parents must complete the appeal forms that are available on the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council website www.rbwm.gov.uk or from the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council Admissions Team (01628 683870). To be considered in the first round of appeals, the notice of appeal must be received by the Council by the specified date.

The appeal will be heard by an independent appeals panel constituted and operated in accordance with the School Admissions Appeals Code. Parents will receive written notification of the date and time of their appeal hearing, which they can attend to explain their case. If they wish, parents may be accompanied by an adviser or friend. Following the appeal, the Clerk to the appeals panel will write to parents with the decision.

 

E.  Waiting List for the Incoming Year 5

Parents / carers can ask for their child’s name to be put on a waiting list for the school. The waiting list will be maintained by The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council Admissions Team on behalf of the school trust from the offer date (3rd March 2025) until 31st August 2025.  From 1st September 2025, the waiting list will be managed by the school.

The waiting list will give priority in accordance with the admissions criteria. Any places that become available will be filled in priority order from the waiting list or late applicants. Whenever a new applicant is added to the waiting list, the list will be reordered in accordance with the oversubscription criteria.

 

F.  Late Applications to Year 5 for September 2025

If a parent has missed the application cut off date for applying for a place in Year 5 for their child (cut off date 31st October 2024), they must contact the admissions team at RBWM to complete a late application form.

 

Note 1 - Looked after children or a child who was previously looked after. This category includes a looked after child or a child who was previously looked after but immediately after being in care became adopted or subject to a child arrangements order or special guardianship order

 

Note 2 - Social or medical criterion. The authority will consider an application in this category only where the child, or his or her parent or guardian, can demonstrate a wholly exceptional medical or social requirement for attendance at the preferred school. It is expected that places will be given under this category in no more than a small number of instances in a year, if at all. To apply under this criterion, the parent or guardian must send a covering letter to support the application. It must explain the reasons for requiring a place under this criterion, why the preferred school is significantly more suitable than any other school for their child, and the difficulties likely to be caused by not attending it. Such difficulties must be so exceptional as to be extremely rare in the population. The reasons may be associated with the child or with the family. Supporting evidence must be included from a suitably qualified professional person associated with the child or the family, such as a consultant, a general practitioner, psychiatrist or a senior social worker. Evidence from members of the family, friends or a child minder will not normally be acceptable. All evidence must be on headed writing paper. Any evidence must be provided at the expense of the parent. The parent must give permission to the local authority to make such enquiries as it thinks necessary to investigate the matter further. All schools are able to work with special educational needs and are expected to accommodate severe medical needs. The authority is unlikely to accept that one school is more suitable than another on these grounds. Such difficulties as child care arrangements or the need to drop off/collect children at more than one school are unlikely to be acceptable without accompanying exceptional medical or social reasons. Applications lacking external objective evidence will be rejected under this category. Any rejected application will then be considered under the next highest appropriate category to the child. Applicants are strongly advised to name other schools within the permitted number of preferences. Applicants seeking to rely on these grounds must provide the necessary evidence by the closing date for applications. This will allow time for the authority to obtain additional evidence if necessary. It may not be possible to consider applications under this criterion after the closing date, even where a family has subsequently moved into the area. The strength of applications will be considered by two or more officers individually and then together, referring to another officer where disagreement exists. Those officers assessing the strength of an application should have knowledge of the admissions process and the School Admissions Code. The papers they consider must have the name of the child and his or her family redacted. Those officers must consider the application as objectively as possible and will note collectively. There will be no right of appeal to officers against refusal of a decision in this category, but all parents will have the usual right of appeal to an independent appeal panel after allocations of places have been published.

 

Note 3 Home Address – this is a child’s habitual residence and must be the address where you live with your child, unless you can prove that your child lives elsewhere with someone who has legal care and control of your child. We expect a child’s home address to be a residential property that is the child’s only or main residence, not an address at which your child may sometimes stay or sleep due to your domestic arrangements. The property must be owned, leased or rented by the child’s parent/s or the person with legal care and control of the child. Additionally, a child’s home address is where he or she spends most of the school week unless this is accommodation at a boarding school.

 

Joint Custody Arrangements – Where the child is subject to a child arrangements order and that order stipulates that the child will live with one parent/carer more than the other, the address to be used will be the one where the child is expected to live for the majority of the time. For other children, the address to be used will be the address where the child lives the majority of the time. Where the child lives equally with both parents and carers at different addresses the authority will consider all available evidence the parent or carer provides in order to confirm which address the authority will use to process the application, for example:

 

  • any legal documentation confirming residence
  • where the child spends the majority of the school week
  • the pattern of the residence
  • the period of time over which the current arrangement has been in place
  • confirmation from the previous school of the primary contact details and home
  • address provided to them by the parents
  • where the child is registered with their GP
  • any other evidence the parents may supply to verify the position

 

Note 4 – Sibling Criterion. A sibling would need to be attending the school at the time of admission of the child for whom a place is sought. The term ‘sibling’ includes a half or step child permanently living in the same family unit or a foster child permanently living in the same family unit whose place has been arranged by the social services department of a local authority. Sibling eligibility will flow from a foster child to other children of the family or from a child of the family to a foster child.

 

 

Note 5 – Maps showing the designated appropriate areas of Dedworth Middle School: