Read: Surrey County Council General Schools Information |
Read: SCC Admissions Arrangements for 2009/10 |
Try SCC's online system for finding your nearest schools (SMART Online) |
Surrey County Council's Admissions Procedure for 2009/10
For all enquiries about admissions, please contact Surrey County Council; details here
Extract from the school's prospectus (Section 5.3: What Now? - Admission Procedure):
The Local Authority (LA), Surrey County Council (SCC), is the legal admissions authority and The Ashcombe School is a LA Community School. Full details of the Admission Arrangements can be found on the Surrey C.C. website www.surreycc.gov.uk -Learning > Schools > School admissions. The following is an extract:
The following admissions criteria will therefore be used to allocate places when a LA Community/Voluntary Controlled School is oversubscribed (in priority order).
- Looked After Children
- Exceptional Circumstances
- Siblings
- Nearest School*
- Any Other applicant
*Fourth Priority: Children for whom the school is the nearest to their home
The nearest school is defined as the school closest to their home address which admits pupils of the appropriate age range. The distance is measured in a straight line from the address point of the pupil’s house, as set by Ordnance Survey, to the nearest school gate available for pupils to use. This is calculated using the Admission and Transport Team’s Geographical Information System. Parents should note that if they apply for free transport, different criteria apply.
Please note: If the school is over-subscribed within any category, we [SCC] will offer places according to the distance measured in a straight line from the permanent home address.
This year, for the first time, all schools in Surrey have an equal-preference system for admissions. This means that they consider all applications equally against their admission criteria and, for example, an application from a parent who has given a school as their third ranked preference is treated initially in the same way as an application where the school is shown as the first ranked preference.
Waiting Lists
If any of your preferences is for a community or voluntary-controlled school and you are not offered a place at that school, your child’s name will be put on the waiting list of any higher-ranked preferences than the one offered. We [SCC] will hold these lists until the end of the summer term 2009. If you want your child’s name to stay on the waiting lists in subsequent years you must let us [SCC] know, in writing. Vacancies from the list will be filled in accordance with the school’s admissions criteria
If you decide to select The Ashcombe School for your child, please follow the County procedures as laid out in the booklet published in Sept 2008 and on their website (see above). The address can be found in Appendix III. Mrs Reed, Deputy Head, co-ordinates admission arrangements at the School and it is important that you contact her if you have specific enquiries or experience difficulties. It is very important that the application form is received by the LA on or before the set date.
The School is very popular and we receive frequent enquiries concerning the chance of being offered a place. Please note that both last year and this year the criteria for priority have changed, and so it is very likely that the pattern of admissions will change. In particular, the change this year in the definition of distance is likely to have an effect You can find the “distance” from your house to the nearby schools using the Surrey County Council’s Surrey Smart Online http://findaschool.surreycc.gov.uk/
645 preferences were expressed for the school for September 2008;
Places allocated in 2008 against admissions criteria: SEN and Looked After Children: 4; siblings: 96; nearest school: 75; others: 65
An additional complication is that some of parents make applications to both State and Private Schools, and at a later stage accept a place at a private school. As a consequence, numbers for Ashcombe drop allowing some pupils who had originally been disappointed to secure a place from the waiting list.
The School cannot admit above its published admissions number (240) without the consent of the LEA. The school is very full and we do not envisage exceeding this in September 2009.
Admission arrangements are explained in the LEA booklet obtainable from the Local Area Office (South East) and we would be pleased to discuss the LEA’s admission arrangements with you.
If your child would be entering a year above Year 7, then please inform us directly by contacting the Headteacher’s Secretary (Mrs Steele)