Admission arrangements for starting secondary schools - 2008/9
Residents living in Hackney will be required to complete The Learning Trust Common Application Form, the form can also be completed on-line, in order to be considered for any state-maintained schools in London. Documents of Proof of address will be required.

Parents can name up to six preferences for secondary schools (including Academies and any City Technology colleges). Parents who wish to apply to religious schools such as Cardinal Pole RC, Hackney Free and Parochial CE, Our Lady’s Convent RC and Yesodey Hatorah Jewish, will also be required to provide additional information relating to membership of a particular faith by completing a supplementary form which must be returned to the school concerned. The information contained on the supplementary form will not be considered unless the school is named on The Learning Trust Application Form.

Some LEAs/schools outside Hackney will also require additional information on a supplementary form. Parents will need to contact the school concerned or the Education Office for the area the school is situated in for further information.

The order of preference given on The Learning Trust Application Form will not be revealed unless:

• other admission authorities/LEAs need this information to apply their own admission criteria, for example if a school’s admission criteria give highest priority to parents who have made that school their first preference
• parents have expressed a preference for more than one school in the same LEA. The LEA will need to decide which school place to offer, if a child can be offered more than one of their schools.

The number to be admitted to each school in Hackney is as follows:

The verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests and banding
Children will be required to take the verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests as part of the admission process to Bridge Academy, Mossbourne Community Academy, Petchey Academy and Cardinal Pole School. These schools will co-ordinate the test arrangements for all pupils who have applied to their schools and will share information to enable them to place each applicant into the appropriate band groups. The test will last two to three hours.

Oversubscription criteria for community secondary schools
Children who have a school named in their Statement of Special Educational Needs are required to be admitted to the school and will be counted against the admission number. We will make every effort to offer your child a place at the school you prefer but if the school is oversubscribed we will be unable to meet every preference. If this happens, places will be allocated in accordance with the following criteria:
1 Children looked after by a local authority.
2 Children whose acute medical or social need justifies a place at that particular school*.
3 Children with brothers and sisters** at the school at the time of the proposed admission (not including Year 11).
4 Applicants living nearest to the main entrance of the school as measured in a straight line on a map or using a GIS mapping system.

Distance as measured in 4 above will also be used in any tie-breaker decisions for priorities 1 and 3 above. The oversubscription criteria for voluntary aided schools and academies are shown in the individual entries for each school.

Processing
Application forms for residents in Hackney must be returned to The Learning Trust by 19 October 2007. Application data relating to preferences for schools in other London LEAs will be passed on using the Pan- London Register in accordance with the London Schools co-ordinated admissions system explained on page 5.

All preferences for schools within Hackney will be considered by The Learning Trust, the admission authorities of voluntary aided (religious) schools and academies in accordance with the oversubscription criteria. No reference will be made to rank order except where this is explicitly included in an admission authority’s published oversubscription criteria, which is the case for Cardinal Pole & Our Lady’s Convent Catholic schools. When the religious schools and academies within Hackney have provided a list of applicants in criteria order to The Learning Trust, the Trust shall, for those applicants for whom an offer is possible from more than one school, allocate a place at one of these schools. This place will be at the school ranked highest on the application form. If other offers are made by LEAs outside of Hackney this offer will only be accepted if the school is ranked higher than any previous offers.

Late applications
The Learning Trust will accept late applications only if they are late for a good reason. Examples of what will be considered as a good reason include: when a single parent has been ill for some time, or has been dealing with the death of a close relative; a family has just moved into the area or is returning from abroad (proof of ownership or tenancy of a property within Hackney will be required in these cases). Other circumstances will be considered and each case decided on its own merits.

The latest date for passing details of late applications to the Pan-London Register is 14 December 2007.

Result of applications
Parents will be sent a notification letter on 3 March 2008.

Children who have not been offered a place at any of the schools of their preference and late applicants whose preferences have not been considered will be notified of schools with places remaining.

The notification letter will inform all applicants resident in Hackney of their highest offer of a school place and, where relevant, the reasons why higher preferences were not offered, whether they were for schools in Hackney or in another London borough.

Applicants’ lower preferences that are no longer required will have been offered to other applicants as part of the London-wide co-ordinating process.

* The Head of Admissions will make decisions on such cases and will seek, if necessary, advice from the Health Service. These cases will always require supporting professional evidence, which has to demonstrate why the child should be given a place at a particular school, and it is the responsibility of the parent to produce the evidence.

** Brothers and sisters must live at the same address as the child for whom the application is being made. This includes half-brothers and sisters, stepbrothers and sisters and foster brothers and sisters who live at the same address

Post-offer arrangements
The Learning Trust will re-allocate any places that become vacant between 17 March and 1 September at schools in Hackney to pupils on the waiting list. Any child who has been refused a place at a higher ranked school, or at all of their preferences, will be placed on a school’s waiting list. The position on the list will be determined in accordance with the school’s oversubscription criteria.

The Learning Trust will continue the lists for community schools up to the end of October 2007. Information regarding waiting lists for voluntary aided schools and academies in Hackney are set out in the individual entries for each school in this booklet.

Information regarding continuing waiting lists for schools outside Hackney is available from the Education offices based in the area where the schools are situated.