Trafford Primary Admissons Policy

Eleven Plus (11+) in Trafford

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Haze77
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri May 22, 2009 10:30 am

Trafford Primary Admissons Policy

Post by Haze77 »

Hi,

We are new moving to the Altricham area and have 2 daughters in Primary School.

Trafford are able to offer us 2 Primary places but in two different schools. The two schools we specified for the in year admissions, one has place for the elder daughter but not the younger daughter. The scecond school has a place for the yonger daughter but not for the older daughter.

This could mean that our 3 daughters could be at three different schools as our eldest is in Secondary school. This would be a nightmare in terms of travelling to school.

Does anybody know what are the policies? If one child is in one Primary school, then is the other child automatically entitled to a place in that school. Or do we have no option but to have the 3 daughters in 3 different schools?

Any info wil be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks.
Gman
Posts: 99
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2009 12:23 am

Post by Gman »

I moved back into Trafford early last year with 1 child. I spoke with the LA and I followed the procedure for transfers in. They gave me a choice of 3 schools.

Having lived in the area and with family here I did no want any of them, and had a shortlist of 2 which were both local (incidently nearer than the ones offered) and had better results and reputations.

So I called the 2 directly. Asked straight out if they had place and got one in my preferred school. This was yr 5. They then confirmed to the LA what was happening.

You need to follow the LA process, to get into the system. But by all means call the schools direct.

I do not know the policy for siblings. But you can ask the LA. They will have to provide what is available.
Etienne
Posts: 8978
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 6:26 pm

Post by Etienne »

Does anybody know what are the policies? If one child is in one Primary school, then is the other child automatically entitled to a place in that school. Or do we have no option but to have the 3 daughters in 3 different schools?
If a school is full, there are only limited circumstances in which the admission number might be exceeded.
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/11plus ... ers.php#c6
(The rules for entry to an infants class where there are already 30 pupils are even stricter.)

However, if you apply for a school place and are refused, you have the right of appeal.
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/11plus ... #section-C
(but if we're talking about an infants class which already has 30 pupils, it can be extremely difficult to win an appeal).
Etienne
Alex
Posts: 1097
Joined: Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:10 pm
Location: Lincolnshire

Post by Alex »

You can download a copy of Trafford's admissions booklet for primary schools which contains details of all the admissions policies for the individual schools:

http://www.trafford.gov.uk/cme/live/dyn ... 1CFD06BC51

As Etienne indicated it is very difficult indeed to win an appeal where there are infant class size issues. If you have one or both children in the infant classes (Reception, Year One and Year Two) you could ask the Admissions Department whether there are Infant Class Size issues at the schools which you would like (if the booklet shows an admission number of 30 or a multiple of 30 you can be pretty sure that there will be such issues). Where there are ICS issues if you have one infant age child and one junior age child it would generally be better in terms of chances of winning an appeal to place the infant age child and appeal for the junior age child. Be aware, though, that even for appeals for junior age children the success rate can vary very widely between different schools and authorities.

Have you asked the Admissions Department where the nearest school with places for both chidren is?

Hope you manage to find a viable solution.
TraffordMum
Posts: 593
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 3:29 pm
Location: Trafford

Post by TraffordMum »

I hope you can sort this out to make things easier for you. For what it is worth, the primary schools/infant and junior schools in the south of the borough (ie Altrincham) are very full and even kids in catchment can miss out on places.

However, I would say there is a certain amount of to-ing and fro-ing too. Places do open up (and get snapped up very quickly) so I would say that even if you do have to accept places at different schools to start out, you may well find a place at one coming free relatively quickly.

One word of advice, bearing in mind the grammar school situation in Trafford, is that you may want to ask schools how much prep for the exams the primaries give. I say this because it varies enormously from school to school. Some are little 11+ factories with streamed forms and some do little to no familiarisation. I'm not advocating one over the other - just be aware that each school is different.
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