Admission policy

Parents/Carers need to apply for a place in our school via the Local Authority. The admissions criteria are used by the governors to make offers of places. The maximum number of pupils admitted to any year group is 30.  Most children transfer to All Hallows RC High School at the age of 11.

St. Boniface is a Catholic School in the trusteeship of the Diocese of Salford. It is maintained by Salford Local Authority and is a voluntary aided School. The Governing Board is the Admissions Authority and is responsible for taking all decisions on applications for admissions. The co-ordination of admissions arrangements is undertaken by the Local Authority. 

For the school’s year commencing September 2025, the Governing Body has determined that the number of children to be admitted to Reception will be 30.

The school’s role is to participate in the mission of the Catholic Church by providing a curriculum, including Catholic religious education and worship, which will help children to grow in their understanding of the Good News and in the practice of their faith. The school will help the children develop fully as human beings and prepare them to undertake their responsibilities as Catholics in society. The school requires all parents applying for a place here to understand and respect this ethos and its importance to the school community. This does not affect the rights of parents who are not of the Catholic faith to apply for a place here. 

Admissions to the school will be determined by the Governing Board. Parents must complete a Local Authority Preference Form or apply online. If you wish to have your application considered against the school's religious criteria then you must ALSO complete the Supplementary Form which will be sent to you by school. 

If there are fewer than 30 applications, all applicants will be offered places. If there are more applications than the number of places available, the following oversubscription criteria will be applied:

Admission criteria

1. Looked After Children and previously Looked After Children.
2. Children who appear to the Governing Board to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted.
3. Baptised Catholic children who have a sibling in the school at the time of admission.
4. Baptised Catholic children resident in the former parish of St. Boniface.
5. Other baptised Catholic children.
6. Other children who have a sibling in the school at the time of admission.
7. All remaining applicants.

If it is not possible to offer places for all applications within any criterion above, priority will be given to those living closest to the school measured in a straight line using LLPG (Local Land and Property Gazetteer) information to measure the distance between the address point of the child’s home address and the centre of the school in miles. 

Notes

a. All applications will be considered at the same time and after the closing date for admissions which is 15 January 2025. Applications received after this date will be treated as a late application and will not be considered until after the main allocation of places has taken place.

b. A looked after child is a child who is the care of a local authority in England, or is being provided with accommodation by a local authority in England in the exercise of their social services function.

c. 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.

d. For a child to be considered as a Catholic evidence of a Catholic Baptism or reception into the Catholic Church is required. Written evidence of reception into the Catholic Church can be obtained by referring to the Register of Receptions, or in some cases a sub-section of the Baptismal Registers of the Church in which the Rite of Reception took place. If, for example, a child has been baptised in the Church of England and the parents are subsequently admitted to the Catholic Church through the RCIA programme, the child must also be admitted to the Church by the Rite of Reception. 

e. The Governing Board will require written evidence in the form of a Certificate of Reception before applications for school places can be considered for categories of ‘Baptised Catholics’. A Certificate of Reception is to include full name, date of birth, date of reception and parent(s) name(s). The certificate must also show that it is copied from the records kept by the place of reception.

f. Those who have difficulty obtaining written evidence of baptism for a good reason, may still be considered as baptised Catholics but only after they have been referred to the parish priest who, after consulting with the [appropriate diocesan authority] will decide how the question of baptism is to be resolved and how written evidence is to be produced in accordance with the law of the Church.

g. Home address is considered to be the address where the child normally lives. Where care is split and a child moves between two addresses, the household in receipt of the child benefit would normally be the address used but the admission authority body reserves the right to request other evidence as fit the individual circumstance. Applicants should not state the address of another relative or person who has daily care of the child. 

h. ‘Sibling’ is defined in these arrangements as full, half or step brothers and sisters, adopted and foster brothers and sisters who are living at the same address and are part of the same family unit. This does not include cousins or other family relationships.

i. A waiting list for children who have not been offered a place will be kept and will be ranked according to the admission criteria. The waiting list does not consider the date the application was received or the length of time a child's name has been on the waiting list. This means that a child's position on the list may change if another applicant is refused a place and their child has higher priority in the admissions criteria.

j. For ‘In year’ applications received outside the normal admissions round, if places are available they will be offered to those who apply. If there are places available but more applicants than places then the published oversubscription criteria will be applied.

k. If an application for admission has been turned down by the Governing Board, parents may appeal to an Independent Appeals Panel. Parents must be allowed at least twenty school days from the date of notification that their application was unsuccessful to submit that appeal. Parents must give reasons for appealing in writing and the decision of the Appeals Panel is binding on the Governors.

l. The Governing Body reserve the right to withdraw the offer of a school place where false evidence is received in relation to the application.

m. It is the duty of governors to comply with regulations on class size limits for children aged between rising five and seven. The Governing Board may exceed the regulations for twins and children from multiple births where one of the children is the 30^th child admitted. This also applies to in-year applicants who are Looked After/previously Looked After Children of UK service personnel or children who move into the area for whom there is no other school available within a reasonable distance.

n. If a child is a 'summer born child', parents may request that the date their child is admitted to school is deferred to later in the school year. However, the child must start school before the end of that school year. If a parent wishes their child to be educated out of their normal school year (kept back a year), they must discuss this with the school before applying. However, the final decision on this rests with the headteacher. 

o. Parents may request that their child attend school part-time until he/she reaches his/her fifth birthday.

Applications for Admissions

Parents considering applying for admission for their children are invited to contact the school office manager to make an appointment for an informal visit with the Head Teacher.

The admissions policy contains full details and is available from school.

Appeals

Any appeal against the school Governors' decision should be made in writing to the Clerk to the Governors at the school.  The Appeals Panel will be nominated by the school Governors and Salford LA in accordance with the Education Act 1990.

Link to Salford LA Admission Policy Website: Applying for a primary school place • Salford City Council

Link to Salford LA Appeal Policy Website: Applying for an appeal • Salford City Council