DRAFT Admissions Policy for entry to Sixth Form from August 2021 Academic Entry Criteria The minimum qualification for entry into the Sixth Form is 6 GCSEs 3 at Grade 4 and 3 at Grade 5 including English and Maths. If an applicant meets these criteria they will be eligible for consideration for a sixth form place. All students in the current Year 11 at Rawlins Academy who meet the academic entry criteria will continue into the Sixth Form, if they wish. PAN 240 places are available which will be filled by internal and external applicants who are eligible to the Sixth Form. All applicants should complete the on line application form on the Rawlins Academy website or via PS16 website (https://ps16.co.uk/). Students are entitled to apply in their own right. All application forms must be completed and returned by the end of January in the year of joining the school. Oversubscription Criteria for External Applicants If there are more applications than places available, offers will be made in the order of the oversubscription criteria listed below: 1. Oversubscription criteria Where there are more applications for Rawlins Academy than there are places available, priority will be given to those applicants who applied on time and ranked in accordance with the priority criteria set out below. Where any applications are tied, the next relevant criteria will be used to determine which application should be offered the place. If they still have identical ranking then lots will be drawn (see note i below). 1st Children who are looked after and those children who were previously looked after children (see note ii). 2nd Students who are attending a local school at the point of application (see note iii). 3rd Students who will have a brother or sister attending the same school at the same time at the point that they are attending (see note iv). 4th Students who have a serious medical condition or exceptional social or domestic needs that make it essential they attend Rawlins Academy. Professional documentation confirming the situation must be submitted with the application (see note v). 5th Children of staff (see note vi). 6th Students who live in the catchment area (see note vii & vii). 7th Students living nearest to the school measured in a straight line distance from their home address to the school front gate (see note ix). Notes: i. If two or more applications have identical ranking after applying all the above criteria in priority order, lots will be drawn. The drawing of lots will be undertaken by a senior officer in the Leicestershire County Council Children and Families Department, supervised by an officer of the Council from another department that is independent of the Council’s School Admissions Service. ii. A ‘looked after child’ is a child who is (a) in the care of a local authority, or (b) being provide with accommodation by a local authority in the exercise of their social services functions (see the definition in Section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989) at the time of making an application to a school. Previously looked after children (including those previously in state care outside of England) are children who were looked after, but ceased to be so because they were adopted (or became subject to a residence order or special guardianship order). iii. The child must be on roll at a local school at the point of application. The following secondary schools are considered to be local schools: Limehurst School, Loughborough Woodbrook Vale School, Loughborough Humphrey Perkins High School, Barrow-upon-Soar De Lisle College, Loughborough Charnwood College, Loughborough Martin High School, Anstey Cedars Academy, Birstall iv. The term “brother or sister” includes half-brother or sister, step-brother or sister or legally adopted child being regarded as the brother or sister, living at the same home address. v. If criterion 4 is used, professional supporting documentation must be supplied and must be submitted with the application. The following list are the areas that are considered exceptional: Crown Servants Children subject to Child Protection Plans Hard to Place children – who fall under the Fair Access Protocol Children of parents suffering from domestic violence (this is dependent on documentary evidence by a lead professional). A child for who transfer to the catchment area school would involve attending a different school until he/she is the right age for transfer (this is dependent on the child having attended the present school for at least a year). Each case will be assessed on its individual merits. vi. The member of staff must have been employed at Rawlins Academy on a permanent contract of at least 15 hours per week for two or more years at the time at which the application for admission is made. vii. The child’s place of residence is taken to be the parental home. Living in the catchment area down not guarantee you a place at your catchment school. viii. For the purpose of processing a school application, a single home address must be used. The child’s place of residence is taken to be the parental home at which they normally reside. Where parents claim equal or dual residency they must prioritise one address over the other, or risk the application not being processed. For children of UK service personnel (UK Armed Forces) and crown servants, a unit postal address or quartering area address that has been formally declared by an official letter will be used as the home address prior to arrival into the UK. ix. For criterion 7 above, measurement of distance of up to three decimal places will be in a straight line from the centre point of the property to the school’s main designated front gate, using a computerised mapping system (Routefinder). Where there is equal distance then lots will be drawn, supervised by an independent officer (see note I above). Some admissions authorities use other criteria when allocating places. For the purposes of clarity, Rawlins does not allocate places on the basis of: Faith - Rawlins is a Church of England Academy, however, belief in, or membership of any particular religion is not used to allocate places; Ability; Aptitude; Previous schools attended, other than named feeder schools; The position in which parents have ranked preferred schools; Any practical or financial support parents may give to the academy; The occupational, marital, financial or educational status of parents applying; Reports from previous schools about children’s past behaviour, attendance, attitude or achievement, or that of any other children in the family; Parental or child disadvantage or disability; Parents’ past or current hobbies or activities; Interviews with children or parents; Financial contributions as any part of the admissions process; Photographs of a child other than as proof of identity Rawlins may need to ask for proof of the following when applying the priority criteria: Address Child’s date of birth A copy of an adoption order, residence order or special guardianship order and a letter from the local authority that last looked after the child confirming that he or she was looked after immediately prior to that order being made Tie-break If the distance criterion is not sufficient to distinguish between two or more applicants for the last remaining place then random allocation will be used. This process will be supervised by somebody independent of the school. Appeals The parents (and/or in the case of a sixth form place, the student) of any child refused a place at the school have a right to appeal to an independent appeal panel. The decision of the independent appeal panel is binding on all parties. .