School Admissions: Guidance for Parents

This guidance is to help parents of children who will be applying for admission to one, or more, of the faith schools for entry into either Year 7 or Reception. We will do all we can to support you in this process. We understand how important it is to find a suitable school place for your child.

It is your responsibility to find out the admission criteria of the school you are applying to, they do differ!

We aim to have a transparent and fair process, which will rely on the signing in process as detailed below. We expect that you and your child will commit to regular attendance and hope that you will become an integral part of our church family.

 

Process 

All children must be registered with us as being part of the school admissions process. This can be done at any time, but we would encourage you to do this as soon as you start attending St Peter’s. Most schools currently require several years of evidence of attendance.

The registration form is an online form with the QR code available here, on our newsletter or link accessible by contacting the Parish Office ([email protected]).

Please note this is the same form used for signing up to our children’s and youth groups, so please remember to complete the question which asks about joining the school register. Please note that you will need to answer the question with the names (both first name and surname) of your child(ren), yourselves as parents and any grandparents who may attend. You need to complete this form so that you are added onto the register and we are then able to contact you when you are due to need forms signing for your chil(ren) to update you with details of what you need to do and the deadlines for this.

 

Each Sunday that you and/or your child attends you must sign in with the stewards before the service starts. Please look for the steward with the register and make yourselves known to them, telling them your first and surname. Please be aware that we have large numbers of people registering each week so if you have an issue with registration please contact the parish office rather than discussing with the person signing in.

This process is for all church services which includes Thursday Holy Communion at 11am, Sunday Holy Communion at 8am, our Sunday family service at 10:30am and our monthly Worship Through Play on Sunday at 4pm. Please note that attendance at Minnows, Link Club or school services does not count towards your church attendance.

The attendance is then compiled into an annual attendance figure and it is that figure which will determine which box we are able to tick on the school application forms.

We cannot stress enough that it is your responsibility to ensure that your child’s attendance is recorded each week.

 

Process for completing church attendance forms 

When a church attendance form is required to support a school application, parents will be required to:

• Complete our online form. Please note this is in addition to any forms to be completed by the schools and is to let us know which schools you are applying for and any other key information to help us with that task.
• Pass any forms to the parish office ensuring they are the correct forms, in Word document format, with any key information completed. Please note this includes your child’s name, but it is the part of the church representative to complete the attendance section. If the forms are to be emailed, please email them through to [email protected]. If they are paper forms, please ensure you have completed the relevant data, printed the forms and delivered them to the office with any required stamped addressed envelopes. Please ensure steps 1 and 2 are completed accurately by the deadline given by church or we cannot guarantee that your forms will be completed.
• When the deadline is passed, a church representative will complete the church attendance forms, using the sign in register as the evidence and will send them on to the schools. You will receive an email receipt to confirm that your forms have been sent. If there are any discrepancies or points to clarify, a church representative will contact you to discuss this. When forms have been sent, you will receive a confirmation email from the church to say your forms have been submitted.

Currently some forms must be completed online and some on paper. We will give you guidance on what to do with each type of form and the deadline dates for applications nearer the time.

Criteria

We have set the criteria by which we will fill in the attendance boxes on the forms.

Full attendance will be deemed as attending 40 or more Sundays in the year.

3 x attendance will be deemed as attending 30-39 Sundays in the year.

Fortnightly will be deemed as attending 20-29 Sundays in the year.

Monthly will be deemed as attending 10-19 Sundays in the year.

Occasional will be deemed as attending less than 10.

 

Notes: 

Given that there are usually 52 Sundays in anyone year, up to 12 weeks absence over the course of the year will be taken into consideration to cover holidays, sickness or other necessary absences.

Adjustments to the above figures may be needed according to the varying data requirements of the individual school forms, over which we have no control. Please note we do not receive notification of any changes from the individual schools and can only fill in the forms with the data requested by each school.

If you feel that you have exceptional circumstances, which make it difficult to meet the above criteria, then you should speak to Rev. Lizzy to make her aware of your situation. This must be done at the time when your child enters the attendance process, or as soon as a change of circumstances arises, and not at the point when the forms are being completed.

Please note that for some school applications Rev’d Lizzy may be asked to take into consideration any additional contributions made to the life of the church, such as serving on a committee, supporting our children’s and youth ministry, or other roles in the church.

 

Important Dates for your diary for 2024 if applying for admission to Year 7 in 2025.

Sept 2^nd-29^th= secondary school forms to be given to the parish office and church online form to be completed (a letter will be available during this period with instructions to follow)

Sept 29^th= deadline for secondary school forms. We will not be accepting more forms beyond this date.

W/C 14^th Oct= school forms will be completed and submitted to schools

28^th Oct-6^th Dec= primary school forms to be given to the parish office and church online form to be completed (a letter will be available during this period with instructions to follow)

6^th Dec= deadline for primary school forms. We will not be accepting more forms beyond this date.

W/C 6^th Jan= primary school forms will be completed and submitted to schools

 

We will publicise this guidance and any further updates in church, on our website and via our email and church church newsletter.

 

To repeat: we cannot stress enough that it is your responsibility to ensure that your child’s attendance is recorded each week. If you have any questions about this process please contact Derek, our church administrator, in the first instance.

Administrator: Derek Dottie. [email protected]  T. 0151 428 6810