Admissions

Admissions Arrangements and Admission Criteria 2027-28

Starting in September 2027

St Ambrose Barlow Catholic Primary School was founded by the Catholic Church/ Religious Order to provide education for children of Catholic families. Whenever there are more applications than places available, priority will be given to Catholic children in accordance with the oversubscription criteria listed below. The school is conducted by its governing body as part of the Catholic Church in accordance with its trust deed and instrument of government and seeks at all times to be a witness to Our Lord Jesus Christ.

As a Catholic school, we aim to provide a Catholic education for all our pupils. At a Catholic school, Catholic doctrine and practice permeate every aspect of the school’s activity. It is essential that the Catholic character of the school’s education be fully supported by all families in the school. We therefore hope that all parents will give their full, unreserved and positive support for the aims and ethos of the school. This does not affect the right of an applicant who is not Catholic to apply for and be admitted to a place at the school in accordance with these admission arrangements.

The governing body is the admission authority and has responsibility for admissions to this school. The local authority undertakes the co-ordination of admission arrangements during the normal admission round^[1]. The admission authority has set the school’s Published Admissions Number (“PAN”) at 30 pupils to be admitted to the Reception Year in the school year which begins in September 2027.

The admission authority will, where logistically possible, admit twins and all siblings from multiple births where one of the children is the last child ranked within the school’s PAN.

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[1] This is for admission to the school at the start of the school year in September and not for applications made in-year.

ADMISSIONS TO THE SCHOOL will be determined by the Governing Body. Parents must complete a Local Authority Preference Form or apply online via the website www.wigan.gov.uk. If you wish to have your application considered against that school’s faith/denomination criteria, then you should ALSO complete the Supplementary Form, which is available from the Local Authority and the school. All preferences listed will be considered on an equal basis and, where there are more applications than the number of places available, the following set of OVERSUBSCRIPTION CRITERIA will be applied:

1. Looked after children and previously looked after children.
2. Catholic children who are resident in the parish(es) of St Margaret Clitherow or former parishes of St Ambrose Barlow, Astley (see notes 3&11)
3. Other Catholic children. (see note 3)
4. Catechumens in the Catholic Church and members of an Eastern Christian Church not in full communion with Rome (see notes 4&5)
5. Children of other Christian Ecclesial Communities whose membership is evidenced by a minister of religion. (see note 6)
6. Children of other faiths whose membership is evidenced by a religious leader. (see note 7)
7. Any other children.

Within each of the categories listed above, the following provisions will be applied in
the following order.

(i) Where evidence is provided at the time of application of an exceptional social, medical or pastoral need of the child which can most appropriately be met at this school, the application will be placed at the top of the category in which the application is made. (see note 10)

(ii) The attendance of a brother or sister at the school at the time of enrolment will increase the priority of an application within each category so that the application will be placed at the top of the category in which the application is made after children in
(i) above (see note 8).

If it is not possible to offer places for all applicants within any criteria above, then places will be allocated to the children who live nearest to the school. Distance will be measured in a straight line from the child’s home address to a central point at the school using Wigan Council’s Geographical Information System (GIS), which is based on the Ordnance Survey. In the event of distances being the same for two or more applicants where this distance would be last place/s to be allocated, we will use a system to randomly pick who will be offered a place.

The admission of pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan is dealt with by a completely separate procedure. Children with an Education, Health and Care Plan that names the school must be admitted. Where this takes place before the allocation of places under these arrangements, this will reduce the number of places available to other children.

To check an address for school place eligibility, please follow the link below:

https://rcaol-schools-finder.cocreatedev.co.uk/

St Ambrose Barlow Admissions Policy 2027-28

A link to the online application form can be found by clicking on the link below.

https://www.wigan.gov.uk/Resident/Education/Schools/School-Admissions/Primary-schools.aspx

Please note that the school will require a Supplementary Faith Form with all applications.