Admissions Consultation - Your Views Welcome
The Governing body of Harris Academy Peckham are consulting on admission arrangements for students applying for places for the academic year beginning in September 2022.
We are required to consult on our admission arrangements when there are significant changes and/or at least every seven years.
The consultation will run over 8 weeks from 26th November 2020 to 21st January 2021. The full draft admissions arrangements for 2022-2023 can be found in the consultation documents downloadable on our Admissions page.
We believe it is important for all stakeholders, including prospective parents and carers, to understand how our Academy manages the admission process. The Trust Board have developed a Trust wide template policy for use by all Harris academies to ensure consistency, clarity and compliance with the Admission Code. This may look different to previous policies, but we are simply setting out our existing criteria in a clearer way.
Proposed changes to the policy include a change of wording and clarification regarding definitions and the effect of the proposed variation to entirely remove the banding test. They are as follows:-
Definition of Social or medical need
For inclusion in this category, either the child or a close family member living with the child at the child's home address, must have an exceptional social and/or medical need which means that only Harris Academy Peckham is suitable for the child to attend, and no other local school is suitable, supported by an appropriate professional.
Changes to the sibling definition
For inclusion in this category, the sibling must attend the Academy in Years 7 to 11 at the time of application/the application closing date and at the time the applicant child is admitted.
For the purpose of this category, a 'sibling' is a full sibling (sharing both parents), a half sibling (sharing one parent), an adopted sibling, a long term foster sibling (i.e. not a temporary placement), a step sibling (one child's parent married to the other child's parent), or a child of their parent's cohabiting partner. In all cases, the sibling must live at the child's home address (as defined by this policy) as part of the same core family unit. For the avoidance of doubt, a child of a friend or extended family member (e.g. cousin) will not be a 'sibling' for this purpose, even if they live at the same address as the applicant child.
The sibling must still be attending the Academy at the time of application/application closing date, and at the time of the applicant child’s admission.
For inclusion in this category, parents must state the sibling's details in the application form.
Changes to Tie Breaker definition
Where there are more applications than places remaining in any of the oversubscription categories, the order in which places will be allocated will be determined by the distance between the child's home address (as defined by this policy) and the Academy, with those living nearest receiving highest priority.
Nearness to the Academy, as calculated by straight line distance from the student’s home to the front door of the Academy. Where a student lives for part of each week at different addresses, the ‘home’ address shall be that address where the student spends the majority of the week.
If at the end of the process set out above there are more candidates than there are places and it is not possible to differentiate between them on the basis of the criteria above, the place(s) will be allocated by drawing lots between the applicants concerned. Any such drawing of lots will be independently verified.
Where the child lives in a multi-dwelling building (for example, an apartment block), distance will be measured from same point in the building so that the distance will be the same for all children living there.
Where two or more children live an equal distance from the Academy (including where they live in the same multi-dwelling building), the order in which places are allocated will be determined by random allocation supervised by someone who is independent of the Academy.
Your questions
We are happy to answer any questions you may have.
Please contact us at Enquiries@harrispeckham.org.uk and we will respond to you. Please also provide your telephone number.
Your views
We would welcome your views on our consultation.
Please ensure you respond to our consultation by Thursday 21st January which is when our consultation period closes.
You can respond in three ways:
- By email: Enquiries@harrispeckham.org.uk
- In writing: correspondence should be sent to Clerk to the Governors, Harris Academy Peckham, 112 Peckham Road, London, SE15 5DZ.
- By filling in the form below