Admissions - Year 6 to Year 7

Aylesford School Admissions 2024

The following documents are for parents of students who have been offered a place to start their secondary education at Aylesford School in September 2024.

Equipment Letter
Uniform Letter

Appeals Information

If your child is due to start secondary school in September 2024, you can appeal if you are refused a place at one of your preferred schools on National Offer Day (Friday 1 March 2024). You needed to submit your appeal before Thursday 28 March 2024 for it to be considered by Monday 17 June 2024. Any appeals received after this time will be heard within 40 school days from the deadline, or where reasonably possible in line with updated guidance from the Department for Education.

For late applications, appeals should be heard within 40 school days from the deadline for lodging appeals where possible, or within 30 school days of the appeal being lodged where reasonably possible in line with updated guidance from the Department for Education

Insert FAQs High Schools Main Round Appeals 2024
Secondary Appeal Form 2024

Further Admissions Information

Defense Statement 2024
Scheme Statement

In Year Admissions

In Year Admissions

Admissions Arrangements Policy 2025

NB within these criteria the term parent is used to refer to parents or legal guardians.

Aylesford School Admissions Policy 2025

1. Students will be offered places without reference to aptitude or ability.

2. Following the application of the DfES ‘Net Capacity Assessment’ the school will publish an admissions number of 180 as its admission limit for students in year seven in September of each academic year

3. Before the application of oversubscription criteria children with a Statement of Special Educational Need or Education, Health and Care Plan which names Aylesford School will be admitted. As a result, the published admissions number will be reduced accordingly..

4. In the event of over subscription for these places, the following criteria are used in the order given here to decide which students should be offered a place.

a) Where the student is in local authority care or previously in Local Authority Care. A ‘looked after child’ or a child who was previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, child arrangements, or special guardianship order. A looked after child is a child who is (a) in the care of a local authority, or (b) being provided 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).

b) Children previously in Care outside of England – Children who appear to KCC to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted. A child is regarded as having been in state care in a place outside of England if they were accommodated by a public authority, a religious organisation or any other provider of care whose sole purpose is to benefit society..

c) Sibling link: where a brother or sister attends the school when the child starts. In this context brother or sister means children who live as brother and sister in the same house, including natural brothers and sisters, adopted siblings, stepbrothers or sisters and foster brothers and sisters.

d) Proximity of the student’s permanent residence to Aylesford School, measured in a straight line using National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) address point data, with those living nearest being accorded the highest priority. The school uses measurements provided by the Local Authority to calculate this distance. Distances are measured from a point defined as within the child’s home to a point defined as within the school as specified by NLPG. The same address point on the school site is used for everybody. If the last pupil to be offered a place within Aylesford School’s published admission number (PAN) is a multiple birth or same cohort sibling, any further sibling will be admitted, if the parents so wish, even though this may raise the intake number above the school’s PAN. The PAN will remain unchanged so that no other pupil will be admitted until a place becomes available within the PAN.

5. In the event of over-subscription in any of the above criteria, students are admitted on the basis of proximity of the student’s permanent residence to Aylesford School, measured in a straight line using NLPG address point data, with those living nearest being accorded the highest priority.

6. A waiting list will be held and re-ranked in line with the published oversubscription criteria, every time a child is added.

7. Students who are offered and have accepted a place at Aylesford School are invited, with their parents, to an induction evening later in the school year to establish a firm working relationship between the school and parents and to explain the process of home school partnership and the School Code of Conduct. There is an expectation that both parties agree to this partnership for the benefit of thestudent.

8. Students are able to join Aylesford School in Year 12 for Sixth Form studies. Priority will be given to existing students transferring from Year 11 who meet the entrance criteria. Admission to the Sixth Form will be as a result of applicants obtaining a minimum of 5 GCSE passes at grade 4 or above including Maths and English and also meet the subject criteria for their chosen course of study. The admission number for external applicants will be dependent upon the number of internal candidates. The overall PAN for Year 12 will be 100 students. Following the admission of internal students transferring from Year 11, all remaining places will be allocated to learners who have met the entry requirements as detailed above. Where there are more learners seeking places than the number of places available, the oversubscription criteria outlined above will be applied to eligible students.

After a place has been offered the school reserves the right to withdraw the place in the following circumstances:

• After the parent or learner has failed to respond to an offer within a reasonable time; or
• When a parent or learner has failed to notify the school of important changes to the application information; or
• The admission authority offered the place on the basis of a fraudulent or intentionally misleading application from the parent or learner.

Offers will be made on the basis of predicted performance at GCSE, with the requirement that the above grades are achieved in the final examinations prior to entry to the Sixth Form and the student’s chosen subjects being accommodated on the timetable, in feasible group sizes.

All offers made during Year 11 are conditional on students meeting the grade criteria specified and will only become firm offers upon confirmation of actual GCSE results. Conditional offers will be made before the end of May 2025. Offers will be confirmed once the school has been notified of GCSE results in August 2025.

Parents have a statutory right of appeal, should an application for a place be refused, by writing to the Clerk to the Governors, care of the school.

Late applications will be considered if places in appropriate subjects are still available after all other applicants have been considered.

A waiting list will be held, ranked according to the over-subscription criteria and will be maintained up to January 2026.

9. For other applications for admission to the School such as:

a) Late applications for admission to Year 7
b) Applications for admission to years other than years 7 and 12
c) Application for admission to any year after the beginning of the school year

These are all organised by the school. Parents should apply to the school in the first instance.

10. The School will apply to the Schools Adjudicator for any in-year changes to its admissions arrangements. The School has established arrangements for independent appeals against non-admission.

11. Requests for admission outside of the normal age group should be made to the Headteacher as early as possible in the admissions round associated with that child’s date of birth. This will allow the school and admissions authority sufficient time to make a decision before the closing date. Parents are not expected to provide evidence to support their request to defer their application, however where provided it must be specific to the child in question. This might include medical or Educational Psychologist reports. There is no legal requirement for this medical or educational evidence to be secured from an appropriate professional, however, failure to provide this may impede a school’s ability to agree to deferral. Parents are required to complete an application for the normal point of entry at the same time, in case their request is declined. This application can be cancelled if the school agrees to accept a deferred application for entry into Year 7 the following year. Deferred applications must be made via paper CAF to the LA, with written confirmation from each named school attached. Deferred applications will be processed in the same way as all applications for the cohort in the following admissions round, and offers will be made in accordance with the school’s oversubscription criteria.

Admission Procedure for September 2025

Application for admission will be in line with the agreed scheme put into place by the Secretary of State for Education and will be co-ordinated by Kent County Council Local Authority. This application procedure will follow the requirements as specified by the Secretary of State and will follow the timetable as set out by both Secretary of State and Kent County Council.

Application Procedure

Application is made by completing the Local Authority (LA) Common Application Form (CAF) which will be made available through your child’s current primary school along with an Admission to Secondary School information booklet.

Parents applying for places will be informed on the national “offer date” as determined by the Local Authority. Parents will be asked to accept any offer of a place at Aylesford within 21 days.

Oversubscription

Where applications for admission exceed the number of places available and if the criteria in paragraph 4 of the admissions criteria, above, have been met, then subject to availability, students are admitted on the basis of the proximity of permanent residence to the school. This is measured in a straight line using NLPG address point data, with those living nearest being accorded the highest priority.

In the event of any of the above criteria being oversubscribed, priority will be given based on distance as described above with those closest being given higher priority. In the unlikely event that two or more children in all other ways have equal eligibility for the last available place at the school, the names will be issued a number and drawn randomly to decide which child should be given the place. This process will be independently supervised.

Late Applications

All applications, late or not, for Year 7 entry in 2025 will be dealt with by the LA up to the end of April. After this date you will need to contact Aylesford School directly.

Equipment_Letter_2024.pdf