St Anselm's Catholic Primary School

Secondary Transfer

 

Transfer to Secondary School September 2015

 

'Choose a Wandsworth Secondary School' Booklet

 

Copies of these booklets will be distributed to parents of all Year 6 pupils each September. Parents are encouraged to obtain a copy of the individual school prospectuses and attend the open days/evenings before submitting their application.

As part of the Council’s Online First policy, parents are strongly encouraged to apply online and the paper common application form is no longer included in each brochure.

A small supply of paper forms have been forwarded to the school for parents who are unable to apply online.

New Schools & Changes of Location

Harris Academy Battersea

A new academy, Harris Academy Battersea, has opened to replace the former Battersea Park School. The academy is sponsored by the Harris Federation who sponsor a number of schools in South London.

Saint John Bosco (Catholic)

Saint John Bosco College is now expected to move into new purpose-built facilities in Battersea in Autumn 2015.

Home to School Distance Measurement

All home to school distance measurements from the September 2013 intake are calculated using a straight line between the applicant’s property and the central point of the school site.

Key Points:

  • Parents can apply for places at up to six state secondary schools in any borough. They should apply for at least four schools and ensure at least one is local enough to qualify on distance.

  • Parents must apply through their ‘home’ borough, the borough in which they reside. For example families resident in Wandsworth apply through Wandsworth, Lambeth residents through Lambeth etc.

 

  • Parents should apply online on the London eAdmissions website at www.eadmissions.org.uk, This is also a link to this from the council’s website www.wandsworth.gov.uk/admissions.

 

  • The paper LA form is no longer included in the brochure. For parents without direct access to a computer, facilities to apply on line are available at libraries, the Council’s Customer Centre at the Town Hall Extension, and at Internet Cafes. IT facilities are available at our school to enable such parents to apply online.
  • When putting the schools in order, parents should put the true order in which they prefer them. Under this system all the schools applied for will consider the child separately under their respective criteria at the same time – they will not be told the order of preference or about any other school a parent has put on the form. It is not lawful to give priority to first preference applicants.

 

  • Secondary Schools will tell their LA the order in which children should be offered places under their respective criteria (i.e. siblings, distance, or test scores, religious criteria etc.).

 

  • The order of preference is only used where more than one of the schools tell their LA that they can offer a child a place. If a child is eligible for a place at more than one of the schools they applied for (across all LAs), the home LA will only offer whichever of these schools the parent put highest in their list and will delete the lower ranked school offers.

 

  • It is important that parents put the schools in the right order, as this cannot be changed later.

 

Supplementary Information Forms

Parents who apply for a Foundation place at St. Cecilia's must complete the Foundation place form (brown) included with the brochure, as well as listing it in their online application or on the LA form. Parents who apply for St John Bosco College must complete the religious affiliation form (gold) included with the brochure, as well as listing it in their online application or on the LA form. Parents wishing to apply for Harris Academy Battersea must complete school’s Supplementary Information Form (green) included with the brochure, as well as listing it in their online application or on the LA form. Parents who want their child to be considered for a specialist place at Ashcroft Technology Academy, Chestnut Grove, or St. Cecilia's, must complete the specialist place form included with the brochure as well as including the school in their online application or on the LA form.

Applicants should return the SIF(s) direct to the Secondary School. Parents applying online will either need to post the additional forms or submit them online as a PDF document.

 

Arrangements for Verifying Catholicity

This will involve making an appointment to speak with Father Will through the Parish Office. (See cream leaflet).

 

Popular Secondary Choices for St Anselm’s Pupils:

 

Maintained Secondary Schools

*Bishop Thomas Grant – Voluntary aided mixed comprehensive (Streatham)

*Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School - Voluntary aided boys’ comprehensive Holland Pk)

*Coloma Convent Girls’ School -Voluntary aided comprehensive (Croydon)

Graveney School - Foundation mixed comprehensive (Tooting)

*La Retraite Catholic School for Girls - Voluntary aided girl’s comprehensive (Lambeth)

*Sacred Heart High School - Voluntary aided girl’s comprehensive (Hammersmith)

*St Joseph’s College - Voluntary aided boys’ comprehensive (Streatham)

*St Philomena’s Catholic High School for Girls - Voluntary aided comprehensive (Carshalton)

*The London Oratory School - Voluntary aided boys’ comprehensive (Fulham)

*Ursuline High School - Voluntary aided girls’ comprehensive (Wimbledon)

*Wimbledon College - Voluntary aided boys’ comprehensive (Wimbledon)

 

*Catholic secondary schools

 

Grammar Schools and Schools in the Independent Sector

 

Alleyn’s School

Dulwich College

Emanuel School

James Allen’s Girls School

Streatham and Clapham High School

Wallington High School

Whitgift School

Wilson’s School

 

Applying to Independent Schools

If you are applying for places in the independent sector, each school will make a written request for a reference from the primary school. Please make an appointment to meet with Mrs Macauley to discuss this.

 

Advice about individual Wandsworth Schools

Parents should refer to the admission criteria for each school and the information on numbers of applications and offers in the previous year, which is included on each school’s page in the booklet. If you are applying for state schools in other boroughs, you are advised to obtain the admission booklet for the appropriate LA to check the criteria and procedure.

 

Home to School Travel Policy

Parents who do not meet the low income requirements and who choose a school which is more than 3 miles from their home measured over the shortest walking route, need to be aware that the cost of transport will not be met by the Council unless it is the nearest school of the same type with a place available within or outside the borough and the journey cannot be made by free bus travel. The policy is set out on page 49 of Choose a Wandsworth Secondary School. Wandsworth resident parents in any doubt about their eligibility for assistance, should contact the Pupil Services Section on 020 8871 7316.

 

Over Age & Under Age Pupils

If your child is transferring to secondary school a year late, or a year early, please check with the secondary schools for which you wish to apply whether your child can be admitted to Year 7. Most secondary schools will unfortunately not agree to admit over age pupils because of the adverse effect on examination results in Year 11.

Pupils with Special Educational Needs

More information about the borough’s Special Schools has been included in the booklet by request. However, these schools must not, of course, be included on the application form. Wandsworth resident parents of children who have a statement or Education, Health and care Plan should NOT apply online or complete the Wandsworth application form. Placement of the child will be decided by the Council in the light of the annual review at which parents will have the opportunity to express preferences. Out-borough parents of statemented pupils must check the arrangements with their home LA. All other Wandsworth resident parents of children with special needs, including those under statutory assessment, must complete an online application or the LA form.

 

Receipt of Application Forms

The national closing date for applications is Friday 31st October 2014. All applications (Online or paper) must be received by this date.

Online applicants must submit their completed application by 11.59pm on 31st October on the London eAdmissions website (www.eadmissions.org.uk).

Parents applying on a paper form should return the form to Pupil Services by 31st October 2014 at the latest. Applicants should return any SIF(s) direct to the Secondary School. Parents applying online will either need to post the additional forms or submit them online as a PDF document.

St Anselm’s provides confirmation of receipt of any forms and maintains a checklist for all our Year 6 pupils, recording on it the date the form is received in school. Forms are sent to the Pupil Services section in batches as they are received. When a child’s form has been sent on, we record the date sent on our checklist. The school will be given secure access to the online system to view a list of our Year 6 children whose parents have applied online.

 

Where Wandsworth resident parents inform us that they do not wish to apply for any state schools, we record this on the checklist, together with details of the schools you are applying to.

 

The Wandsworth Year 6 Test

All Wandsworth Year 6 pupils, irrespective of which borough they live in, must take the Wandsworth Year 6 test in the primary school on Thursday 27th November 2014. Any children absent on the day will need to take the test as soon as they return. However it will be difficult to incorporate test results into the admission process beyond the end of the Autumn term. The results of the test will be forwarded to each secondary school to which parents have applied to be used in the admission process as applicable.

The test will only consist of the Wandsworth NVR and VR tests. The Special abstract test is no longer used for this purpose. This shortens the overall length of the test. Further information will be sent to schools before the test.

Information for parents on the test is included in the Choose a Wandsworth Secondary School booklet this year (pages 52-53). The Schools Adjudicator has determined that to comply with the School Admissions Code and the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act, parental requests for children with special educational needs to be given extra time to take the test, must be considered. The LA allows extra time in response to requests from parents of pupils at School Action or School Action Plus who receive extra time to follow normal classroom activities on a regular basis, where the request is supported by the primary headteacher. The annual guidance manual on administration of the test in primary schools will provide further details.

Primary schools will receive their pupils’ test scores as soon as these are available towards the end of January. These may be given to parents on request but can mean little in isolation. Parents who want to know how their child’s score affected an application for a particular secondary school should contact the secondary school direct after places have been allocated.

 

Notification of Decisions

The outcome of all preferences (for Wandsworth and out-borough schools) will be sent to all Wandsworth resident parents in one letter posted by Pupil Services on the published date. Those applying online will receive an email with the outcome during the evening. Pupils resident in other boroughs will be posted a letter from their home borough on the offers date.

The Pupil Services section will notify the school of the outcome of Wandsworth resident applications to ensure that the school has the information at the same time as parents. Information in respect of out-borough residents will need to be obtained from the borough of residence, as they are responsible for co-ordinating the application and sending the outcome letter.