Admission Arrangements

2025-26 Admission Arrangements

Madeley School
Admission Arrangements
Normal Age of Entry:  Academic Year 2024/25
The school admission number for the school year 2024/25 is 150.

Although parents have the right to express a preference for the school that they wish their child to attend, there is no guarantee of a place being offered at their preferred school.

It is Madeley School’s policy to try and meet parent’s wishes where possible, however in some cases there may be more applications for a particular school than there are places available.

Admission where the school is oversubscribed is determined by the oversubscription criteria given below.

If the total number of preferences for admission to the school exceeds the school’s Published Admission Number (PAN), the following order of priority is used to allocate the available places. 

1.  Children in Care and children who ceased to be in care because they were adopted (or became subject to a residence order or special guardianship order).  For the purposes of admissions, the term PLAC is defined in paragraph 1.7 of the Admissions Code as children who were looked after (by an LA in England), but ceased to be so because they were, immediately after being looked after, adopted became subject to a child arrangements order or special guardianship order.  However, following the Children and Social Work Act 2017, the role of Virtual School Heads and designated teachers have been extended to include children who left care under adoption, special guardianship or child arrangements order or were adopted from ‘state care’ outside England and Wales.   It is recommended that admission authorities give second highest priority to this group of children within their admission arrangements.

2. Children who satisfy both of the following tests:

Test 1:  the child is distinguished from the great majority of applicants either on their own medical grounds or by other exceptional circumstances.

Medical grounds must be supported by a medical report (obtained by the applicant and provided at the point of application). This report must clearly justify, for health reasons only, why it is better for the child’s health to attend the preferred school rather than any other school.

Exceptional circumstances must relate to the choice of school and the individual child, i.e. the circumstances of the child, not the economic or social circumstances of the parent/carer. It should be supported by a professional report (obtained by the applicant and provided at the point of application), e.g. social worker. This report must clearly justify why it is better for the child to attend the preferred school rather than any other school.

Test 2:  the child would suffer hardship if they were unable to attend the school.

Hardship means severe suffering of any kind, not merely difficulty or inconvenience, which is likely to be experienced as a result of the child attending a different school. Applicants must provide detailed information about both the type and severity of any likely hardship at the time of application.

3. Children who have an elder sibling in attendance at the preferred school and who will still be attending the school at the proposed admission date; (For admission purposes, a brother or sister is a child who lives at the same address and either: have one or both natural parents in common; are related by a parents marriage; are adopted or fostered by a common parent or are unrelated children who live at the same address, whose parents live as partners.)

4.  Children living within the catchment area of the preferred school.

5.  Children who attend the following primary schools which are defined as major contributory primary schools; Baldwin’s Gate CE Primary, Betley CE Primary, Hugo Meynell CE Primary, Sir John Offley CE Primary, St. John’s CE Primary Keele,  St. Mary’s C.E. (A) Primary School, Mucklestone, and The Meadows Primary.

6. Other children arranged in order of priority according to how near their home addresses are to the main gate of the school, determined by a straight-line measurement as calculated by the Local Authority’s Geographical Information System. 

Where it is not possible to accommodate all children applying for places within a particular category then the Admissions Authority will allocate the available places in accordance with the remaining criteria. If for instance, all the catchment area children cannot be accommodated at a school, children who are resident within the catchment area will be arranged in order of priority according to distance i.e. category (5).

Copies of school catchment area maps are available from the Local Authority or individual schools.

There is no charge or cost related to the admission of a child to a school.

Admissions are administered on behalf of Madeley School through a coordinated admission scheme by the School Admissions and Transport Service.

In accordance with legislation, children who have an Education, Health & Care Plan that names a particular school as being the most appropriate to meet the child’s needs must be admitted to that school. This will reduce the amount of places available to other applicants.

Children in Care means children who are in the care of, or provided with accommodation by a local authority in accordance with section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989 at the time of making the application.

It is the applicant’s responsibility to provide any supportive information required in order for the application to be assessed against the published admissions criteria, the Local Authority will not seek to obtain this information of behalf of the applicant.

The Local Authority uses a Geographical Information System (GIS) to calculate home to school distances in miles. The measurement is calculated using Ordnance Survey (OS) data from an applicant's home address to the main front gate of the school. The coordinates of an applicant's home address are determined using the Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) and OS Address Point data.

The home address is considered to be the child’s along with their parent’s main and genuine principal place of residence at the time of the allocation of places i.e. where they are normally and regularly living. If a child is resident with friends or relatives (for reasons other than legal guardianship) the friends or relative’s address will not be considered for allocation purposes.

Where parents have shared responsibility for a child, and the child lives with both parents for part of the school week, parents will be required to provide documentary evidence to support the address they wish to be considered for allocation purposes.

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 is likely to be withdrawn.

If there are a limited number of spaces available and we cannot distinguish between applicants using the criteria listed, such as in the case of children who live in the same block of flats, then the child or children who will be offered the available spaces will be randomly selected. This process will be independently verified.

Any Staffordshire child not obtaining a place at any of their parents preferred schools will be allocated a place at their catchment area school (if places remain available) or the next nearest school with a space available and advised about the independent appeals process.

Unsuccessful applicants will be placed on a waiting list in accordance with the oversubscription criteria stated above and not based on the date their application was received. If places become available after the offer date they will be offered according to the child at the top of the waiting list.

Waiting Lists will be kept until the end of the autumn term of admission. No other waiting lists will be maintained.

Inclusion on a school’s waiting list does not mean that a place will eventually become available at the preferred school.

A child’s position on a waiting list is not fixed and is subject to change during the year i.e. they can go up or down the list since each added child will require the list to be ranked again in line with the oversubscription criteria listed above.

Children who are subject of a direction by a local authority to admit or who are allocated to a school in accordance with the Fair Access Protocol will take precedence over those on the waiting list.

Application forms received after the closing date will be considered alongside those applicants who applied on time wherever possible. Where it is not practicable because places have already been allocated, or are shortly to be allocated, then late applicants will be considered only after those applicants who applied by the published closing date.

A late application does not affect the right of appeal or the right to be placed on a school’s waiting list.

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 authority has accepted a second application from the appellant because of a significant and material change in the circumstances of the parent, child or school but still refused admission.

Parents may seek to apply for their child’s admission to school outside of their normal age group, for example if the child is exceptionally gifted and talented or has experienced problems such as ill health.

These parents will need to make an application alongside children applying at the normal age which should explain why it is in the child’s best interest to be admitted outside of their normal age which may include information such as professional evidence as to why this is the case and why an exception should be made in the case of the child. A decision as to whether this is an appropriate course of action will be made by the Governing Body who will take into account the circumstances of the case and views of the Principal.  Parents do not have the right to insist that their child is admitted to a particular year group. 

Click here to view Staffordshire County Council's Secondary School Admission Information