St James C of E Primary School

Our Admissions Policy

Dear prospective Parents and Carers

Welcome to St James Primary School.  There are many factors to consider when choosing the right primary school for your child and family.  To help you with this important decision we hold a number of open mornings so that you can to get a first-hand experience of our school.

Our open mornings provide everyone with the opportunity to experience our school and gain an insight of what it will be like for their child come here. Our teachers are passionate, creative and have high expectations for each and every child. All of the staff and children know each other very well.

Our school is small and very community focused. We are proud of and celebrate our diversity. Our children understand the importance of being responsible for and needing to make a contribution to our school community, the local community and beyond.

Our setting is unique.  We are located in the heart of Muswell Hill right next door to Highgate Woods – we can even touch the trees. We are fortunate to have extensive outdoor facilities including four playgrounds which we utilise in all areas of learning.

When our children leave St James Primary they are well prepared socially, emotionally, spiritually and academically for Secondary school and life beyond.

You also need to consider that in the event of there being more children wanting a Reception place than the number available the Governors will apply a set of criteria.  This varies in each school. Historically, at St James Primary, some families have not applied as they thought that the criteria for our school meant that they had to be a Christian to attend. This is not the case. We are a Christian based school and we do have children from families who are Christian and attend Christian churches. But we also have families who follow other faiths and attend other places of worship and other families who do not follow a faith. If you have any questions regarding our criteria please do contact us and we will be happy to explain things further.

To book a tour please email us at  office@stjamesprimaryschool.co.uk or call us on 0208 883 6540.  For those who cannot make our open days or if you’d like further information, please see our website www.stjamesprimaryschool.co.uk or drop us a line as we are always happy to help.

 I look forward to meeting you soon and having the opportunity to show you round our wonderful school.

 Best wishes

Geraldine Gallagher, Executive Head Teacher

St James CofE Primary School Admissions Policy 2023 -2024

An overview

St James CofE Primary School offers 30 places in each year group from Reception to Year 6.  Children joining in Reception are normally admitted in the Autumn term, in September

Applying for a place at St James CofE Primary

Parents who would like t to apply for a place in our Reception class should complete an online Common Application Form (CAF) from their Local Authority naming St James CofE Primary School.  This form needs to be submitted to your local authority by 15^th January 2023.  (For Haringey residents, this is Haringey Admissions Services).

Legal requirements

We follow the DfE statutory guidance for admissions.  The Governing body oversees our admissions process

Admissions criteria

In the event of there being more applications for our Reception class than places, in reaching a decision concerning admission of a child to the Reception class, the governors will apply the following criteria below, which are listed in order of priority

 Looked after or previously looked after children.

Applicants are asked to note that priority is given to children who are looked after 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.

Applications under this criterion should be accompanied by evidence to show that the child is looked after or was previously looked after (e.g. a copy of the adoption, child arrangements or special guardianship order).   

Children who will have a brother or sister in the school at the time of entry into the Reception class.

The term ‘brother or sister’ includes foster brothers and sisters, half brothers and sisters or step brothers and sisters. It does not include other relations. The sibling must reside at the same address as the child applying for a place.

Remaining Places

The remaining places will be allocated equally between

• applicants attending a place of worship (faith based) and
• distance from school, regardless of background or faith (community based)

up to a maximum of 15 each. If the remainder is an odd number the extra place will go to a faith based placement. If there are insufficient faith based applicants the remaining places will go to community based applicants.

Faith based applicants allocated in the following order:

Up to 10 places for St James Church applicants

Children whose parents have been members of St James Church, Muswell Hill, London N10 for more than 18 months at the time of the closing date for applications, and who are regularly (‘regularly’ is defined as normally attending church at least fortnightly having done so for a period of 18 months) involved in worship at the church.

In the event that during the period specified for attendance at worship the church has been closed for public worship and has not provided alternative premises for that worship, the requirements of these admissions arrangements in relation to attendance will only apply to the period when the church or alternative premises have been available for public worship

Remaining faith based places for local church applicants

Children whose parents have been members of, and are regularly (‘regularly’ is defined as normally attending church at least fortnightly having done so for a period of 18 months) involved in worship at a church of a Christian denomination, which is recognized by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CGBI) or the Evangelical Alliance within 2 miles of the school, for more than 18 months at the time of the closing date for applications,

In the event that during the period specified for attendance at worship the church has been closed for public worship and has not provided alternative premises for that worship, the requirements of these admissions arrangements in relation to attendance will only apply to the period when the church or alternative premises have been available for public worship

Please note: the school’s Supplementary Information Form (SIF) only needs to be completed if you are applying under faith based criteria. The SIF needs to be returned directly to school via email, in person or post by 15th January 2023.   You can download a SIF from the Admissions page on our school website.  Once we have received this from you, we will write to the minister(s) named on the form asking for confirmation of commitment and regular attendance.   The Governors reserve the right to seek clarification of a minister’s status

If parents/carers have recently moved into the area and have therefore not been involved at a local church for the required time but have attended another church up to their move, they can provide details of their previous church on the SIF so we can contact them to confirm their commitment and regular attendance at that church.  Attendance at the previous church will count towards the period referred to if the parents or carers have attended the church regularly. 

Children with Educational Health Care Plans

Children with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan where St James C of E Primary School is the named school will be admitted to the school. The priority order of the oversubscription criteria does not apply to these pupils.

Notes to the admissions criteria:

Distanced based criteria

Within each of the criteria, when deciding between applicants who have equal entitlement, the Governors will give first priority to the children whose main permanent address is closest to the school as measured from in a straight line from the school gate to the Ordinance Survey point of the child’s home address, using a computerised mapping system as determined by Haringey Admissions.  Where more than one child has the same distance random allocation, independently monitored, will be used.

We currently have children attending St James from the following postcodes: N10, N8, N22, N12, N11, N3, N2, N6, N7, NW3, N15, N17. 

Deferred Entry

Children will normally be admitted to the Reception Year in the September following their fourth birthday. Parent(s) can request to defer their child’s entry to Reception until later in the school year but not beyond the point the child reaches compulsory school age nor beyond the beginning of the final term of the Reception year. Parent(s) who request for their child to delay entry, may also request for their child to attend part-time. Parent(s) will need to meet with the Head teacher to discuss their request. The school will hold any deferred place for the child. A child reaches compulsory school age on the prescribed day following his or her fifth birthday (or on his or her fifth birthday if it falls on a prescribed day). The prescribed days are 31 December, 31 March and 31 August.

Delayed Entry – Admission out of normal age group – Summer born children

For children whose fifth birthday falls between 1 April 2024 and 31 August 2024, parents who do not wish for them to start in school year 2023-2024, but to be admitted in September 2024 for school year 2024-2025 should discuss deferred admission with the school at an early stage.

 We will consider all requests and decisions will be made on the circumstances of each case and the best interest of the child. Parental views, academic achievement, social and emotional development and where relevant, medical views will be taken into consideration. The views of the school’s head teacher will be taken into account and the reasons for the decision will be clearly set out.

Parents who decide not to apply for a Reception place in the school but to apply for a Year 1 place in September 2024 should be aware that the Year 1 group may have no vacancies as it could be full of children transferring from the Reception Year group. Alternatively, they may decide to apply in the normal round (no later than 15^th January 2024) for a Reception class place in September 2024, but would need to supply strong supporting reasons for seeking a place outside the normal year group and apply via the protocol outlined above. For additional information on admission of children outside their normal age group, please contact the School Office. Parents may ask to be put on the school’s register of interest at any time before this. This will mean that parents will receive up to date admission criteria.  However, it will not give any priority in admission.

Receiving a place

Parents will normally be notified by their local authority of the outcome of their application on or about Friday 15^th April 2023. The names of unsuccessful applicants will be placed on a numbered waiting list until the beginning of the school year for which they have applied.  After this date details of unsuccessful applicants will be held on file and will be contacted if a place becomes available.

Statutory Admissions Policy Consultation 

We are looking to amend our 2024 - 2025 Admissions policy.  Please let us know if you have any questions.  You can find more information on this here .

If you would like to read our Admissions policy for 2023 - 2024, please click here

If you are applying under our church criteria you need to download our Supplementary form here  and return it directly to us at school.   If you are applying under any other criteria such as 'siblings' or 'distance', you do not need to fill in a Supplementary form.

Making An Appeal

If your application for a place in unsuccessful and you would like to lodge an appeal, you must so within 20 school days from the date of notification.  We will then let you know at least 10 school days before, the date of your appeal hearing.  A letter with the decision details of the hearing will be sent out within five days of the date of the hearing.

Please see our Admissions policy for more details.