Admission Arrangements for 2025 - 2026

Admission Arrangements for 2025 - 2026

Overview

Highams Park’s admission arrangements remain largely the same as previous years, subject to minor adjustments for reasons of compliance with alterations to the Department of Education’s School Admissions Code. These admission arrangements were consulted upon in line with statutory requirements for the period of six weeks between 26th October 2020 and 7th December 2020

• There is no increase in the current Published Admission Number (PAN) of 240 year 7 places.
• All applications for a place in any year group at Highams Park School outside of the “normal” September admission round for year 7 places (so called in-year admissions) SHOULD BE MADE DIRECTLY TO HIGHAMS PARK SCHOOL, not Waltham Forest admissions service. There is a Highams Park School in-year application form available from the school or its website that should be used.

Applying for a Year 7 place in a normal September admission round

The admission authority of Highams Park School is the Highams Park Academy Trust (the Governing body of the School).

However, under present legislation, all admissions to state schools in the normal admission round, including Academies must be administered by the Local Authority in which the family resides.

Therefore, parents wishing their son/daughter to be admitted to Year 7 at Highams Park in September 2025 must complete the Local Authority common application form and name Highams Park School as one of their preferred choices. The form is available from the local authority (assumed to be London Borough of Waltham Forest for the majority), and must be returned to them.

As well as the Local Authority form, there is an additional supplementary information form for Highams Park School that must be completed and returned to the Admissions Officer at Highams Park School. This Supplementary Information Form (SIF) is available from our website or Waltham Forest.

The school has an agreed Published Admission Number (PAN) of 240 pupils for entry in year 7. The school will accordingly admit up to 240 pupils in the relevant age group each year if sufficient applications are received. All applicants will be admitted if 240 or fewer apply. The PAN for Year 7 in 2025 and each subsequent Year 7 will be 240.

Oversubscription criteria if there are more applications than places in the normal Year 7 admission round.

The school is usually very popular and has been heavily ‘over-subscribed’ for more than twenty years. This trend shows no sign of changing.

If the school is oversubscribed, after the admission of pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan¹ where the school is named in the Plan, priority for admission will be given to those children who meet the criteria set out below, in order:

• A 'looked after child' or a child who was previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, residence, or special guardianship order 2. A looked after child is a child who is (a) in the care of a local authority, or (b) being provided with accommodation by a local authority in the exercise of their social services functions (see the definition in Section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989). This includes children adopted from state care outside of England known as internationally adopted previously looked after children (IAPLAC).
• Children of staff at Highams Park School in either or both of the following circumstances:
  
  • Where the member of staff has been employed at the school for two or more years at the time at which the application for admission to the school is made, and/or
  • The member of staff is recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable skill shortage.
• Where the child has a brother or sister (sibling) ³ on the school roll at the time of application. This includes students in Year 12 who previously completed their Year 11 education at Highams Park School.
• Other children by distance from the school to the child’s home ⁴, at the time of application, with priority for admission given to children who live nearest to the school ⁵.

Notes, Definitions, terms of reference and further clarification

The following have been decided by Highams Park Academy Trust (the Governing Body), the admissions authority for the school

1. Education, Health and Care Plan – Some children will have an Education, Health and Care Plan that names Highams Park School for the child. If this is the case, then the child will receive a place at the school via borough SEND departments following consultation with the school.

2. An adoption order (In criterion ‘a’ above) is an order under the Adoption Act 1976 (see section 12 adoption orders) and children who were adopted under the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (see section 46 adoption orders) Children Act 2002. A ‘child arrangements order’ is an order settling the arrangements to be made as to the person with whom the child is to live under Section 8 of the Children Act 1989 as amended by s.14 of the Children and Families Act 2014. Section 14A of the Children Act 1989 defines a ‘special guardianship order’ as an order appointing one or more individuals to be a child’s special guardian (or special guardians). To qualify as an internationally adopted previously looked after child (IAPLAC), the child must have been adopted and the child must have previously been in the care of or accommodated by a public authority, a religious organisation, or another provider of care whose sole or main purpose is to benefit society, immediately before they were adopted

3. Brother or Sister in the school (Siblings) (In criterion ‘c’ above) applies if an applicant has a brother or sister (sibling) on roll at the time of application and who is likely to be on roll on the 1st September when the applicant hopes to become a member of the school. We define siblings as:

· a full brother or sister;

· a half-brother or sister (i.e. one natural parent in common);

· a stepbrother or stepsister;

· a foster brother or sister.

Where the only sibling is in Year 11, there should be the strong likelihood that they will be continuing into Year 12 at the school. Where the sibling is in Year 12, only those who previously attended Highams Park to sit their GCSEs qualify their brother or sister (sibling) for a place in Year 7. Where the only sibling is in Year 13, they will not qualify their brother or sister (sibling) because they will no longer be on a roll on the 1st September following.

4. Home (In criterion ‘d’ above) - The main residence of the child is to be used. The main residence is where the child lives most, if not all of the time.

5. Distance (In criterion ‘d’ above) - The distance measurement will be carried out by the Local Authority, the London Borough of Waltham Forest, on our behalf, using the straight line distance from home to school “as the crow flies”. The distance measured will be in a straight line from the child’s main residence to the main pedestrian gate at the front of the school using the Local Authority’s computerised Geographical Information System, with data supplied by the Ordnance Survey. There is no catchment area. There are no preferred Primary Schools.

6. Random allocation will be used as a tie-break in criterion ‘d’ (distance from the school) above to decide who has highest priority for admission if the distance between two children’s homes and the school is the same. This process will be independently verified.

In year Admissions to Years 7 - 11

1. In-Year applications are those that fall outside the normal admission round for a year 7 place. These are considered using a different procedure

2. The school is very popular and has been heavily ‘over-subscribed’ for more than twenty years. This trend shows no sign of changing. Rarely are there less in the year group than the PAN.

3. The PAN is 240 places in year 7. If the number on roll in a particular year group is at or above that number then the admission authority for the school, the Highams Park Academy Trust (the Governing Body), would normally refuse an application for a place in that year group as accepting the application would prejudice the provision of efficient education or the efficient use of resources. Applications for a place in a “full” year group are unlikely to be successful.

4. All In-Year applications will be considered, but in the light of paragraph 2 and 3 above, places will only be offered in exceptional circumstances, where the application is supported strongly by the previous school and/or appropriate professional advice. This includes places directed by the London Borough of Waltham Forest’s “Fair Access Protocol”

5. Repeat applications will not be considered in the same academic year, unless there is a significant change in circumstances of the applicant.

6. If we are unable to offer a place to an applicant, the applicant has the right of appeal.

7. All applications for a place in any year group at Highams Park School outside of the “normal” September admission round for year 7 places (so called in-year admissions) SHOULD be made directly to Highams Park School, not Waltham Forest admissions service. There is a Highams Park School in-year application form available from the school or its website that should be used.

Admission to the 6th Form (Years 12 and 13, students aged 16 - 19)

• Highams Park will admit students to the 6th Form from where it is able to offer a Programme of Study that will benefit the student and for which they are suitably qualified.

• The 6th Form provision can be found on the school’s website and gives full details of courses offered and their requirements on a subject by subject basis.

• The anticipated overall capacity of the 6th Form is 500.