Admissions criteria for community and voluntary controlled primary schools 2025 to 26

When a school is oversubscribed on parental preferences, then the following priorities apply in order:

  1. Looked after children or a child who was previously looked after, but immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, child arrangement order, or special guardianship order or those children who appear to the school to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted , then
  2. Children for whom the Local Authority accepts that there are exceptional medical social or welfare reasons which are directly relevant to the school concerned, then
  3. Children eligible for Services Premium, then
  4. Children with older brothers and sisters attending the school when the younger child will start, then
  5. Remaining places are allocated according to where a child lives. Those living nearest to the preferred school by a straight line (radial) measure will have priority.

Tie breaker:

The distance criterion will be used as the tie breaker if there is oversubscription within any of the admission criteria; it is a straight line (radial) measure. 

If the Local Authority is unable to distinguish between applicants using the published criteria (e.g. siblings, those living the same distance from home to school, or families residing in the same block of flats) places will be offered via a random draw.

The distance measure is a straight line measurement (radial) between the applicant’s home address points and the address point of the school (co-ordinates provided by ordnance survey data).

When a primary school with a GPA is oversubscribed the following priorities will be applied in order:

  1. Looked after children or a child who was previously looked after, but immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, child arrangement order, or special guardianship order or those children who appear to the school to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted, then 
  2. Children for whom the Local Authority accepts that there are exceptional medical, social or welfare reasons which are directly relevant to the school concerned, then
  3. Children eligible for Services Premium, then,
  4. Children living within the school’s geographical priority area with older brothers or sisters attending the school when the younger child will start, then
  5. Children living within the school’s geographical priority area, then
  6. Children living outside the school’s geographical priority area with older brothers or sisters still attending the school when the younger child will start, then
  7. Children living outside the school’s Geographical Priority Area.

GPAs relate to

Mayfield Primary School, Lytham

Moss Side Primary School

Edisford Community Primary School

Ribblesdale School

Crawshawbooth Primary School

Waterfoot Primary School

Tie-breaker:

The distance criterion will be used as the tie breaker if there is oversubscription within any of the admission criteria; it is a straight line (radial) measure. 

If the Local Authority is unable to distinguish between applicants using the published criteria (e.g. siblings, those living the same distance from home to school, or families residing in the same block of flats) places will be offered via a random draw.

The distance measure is a straight line measurement (radial) between the applicant’s home address points and the address point of the school (co-ordinates provided by ordnance survey data).