Admissions Consultation

The Governing body of Harris Academy Falconwood are consulting on admission arrangements for students applying for places for the academic year beginning in September 2022. We are required to consult on our admission arrangements when there are significant changes and/or at least every seven years.

We believe it is important for all stakeholders, including prospective parents and carers, to understand how our Academy manages the admission process. The Trust Board have developed a Trust wide template policy for use by all Harris Academies to ensure consistency, clarity and compliance with the Admission Code. This may look different to previous policies, but we are simply setting out our existing criteria in a clearer way.

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Proposed changes to the policy include a change of wording and clarification regarding definitions and an additional oversubscription criterion. They are as follows: -

Definition of a 'Parent'

In this policy and in education law, the definition of a 'parent' includes a natural or adoptive parent of the child (regardless of whether they child lives with them, has contact with them, or they have parental responsibility for the child). It also includes a person who is not a natural or adoptive parent of the child, but who has care of and/or parental responsibility for the child.

Definition of a Sibling

For the purpose of this category, a 'sibling' is a full sibling (sharing both parents), a half sibling (sharing one parent), an adopted sibling, a long-term foster sibling (i.e. not a temporary placement), a step sibling (one child's parent married to the other child's parent), or a child of their parent's cohabiting partner. In all cases, the sibling must live at the child's home address (as defined by this policy) as part of the same core family unit. For the avoidance of doubt, a child of a friend or extended family member (e.g. cousin) will not be a 'sibling' for this purpose, even if they live at the same address as the applicant child. For inclusion in this category, the sibling must attend the Academy in Years 7 to 11 at the time of application/the application closing date and at the time the applicant child is admitted.

Definition of Children of Staff

A 'child' of a staff member is:

• their natural or adopted child, whether they live with the staff member or elsewhere; and/or
• their step-child or child of their cohabiting partner, who lives and sleeps with the staff member at their home address for more than 50% of their time from Sunday to Friday night during term time (for the avoidance of doubt, a step-child or child of a cohabiting partner, who lives elsewhere, will not be eligible for a place under this category)

Change to Tie Breaker (All Year Groups) Definition

The Tie Breaker definition in section 10 will change within each category as explained below:

Where there are more applications than places remaining in any of the oversubscription categories, the order in which places will be allocated will be determined by the distance between the child's home address (as defined by this policy) and the Academy, with those living nearest receiving highest priority.

Distance will be measured in a straight line from the easting and northing co-ordinates for the child's home address to easting and northing coordinates for the front door of the Academy, using the London Borough of Bromley's electronic measuring system which relies on Ordnance Survey GIS references.

Where the child lives in a multi-dwelling building (for example, an apartment block), distance will be measured from the same point in the building so that the distance will be the same for all children living there.

Where two or more children live an equal distance from the Academy (including where they live in the same multi-dwelling building), the order in which places are allocated will be determined by random allocation supervised by someone who is independent of the Academy.

Published Admission Numbers (PAN)

There is a change to our Sixth Form PAN as follows: The PAN for Year 12 is 40 pupils. This figure relates to external candidates for Year 12 places only, as the Academy's existing Year 11 pupils will simply transfer to Year 12 in the usual way, if they meet the Minimum Academic Entry Criteria and want to continue their education in the Sixth Form.

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The full draft admissions arrangements for September 2022 can be found below.

The consultation will run from Wednesday 9th December 2020 to Friday 22nd January 2021.

Your questions

We are happy to answer any questions you may have.  Please contact us at info@harrisfalconwood.org.uk and we will respond to you. Please also provide your telephone number.

Your views

We would welcome your views on our consultation.  Please ensure you respond to our consultation by noon on Friday 22nd January 2021, which is when our consultation period closes.

You can respond in three ways:

• By email: info@harrisfalconwood.org.uk  
• In writing: correspondence should be sent to Admissions Consultation, Harris Academy Falconwood, The Green, Welling, Kent  DA16 2PE
• By filling in the form below

Next steps

After our consultation, we will consider all the responses and discuss these with the Governing Body.