Apply

We welcome applications from all families - you do not need to be Catholic to be part of our wonderful school.

If your child's 4th birthday is between 1 September 2023 and 31 August 2024 then you will need to apply for a place at First, Infant or Primary School.

Applying for a place in Reception Class

The School Admissions Team at Staffordshire County Council allocate

all school Reception class places - for further details on the admissions

process including admission criteria, catchment areas, appeals etc

please follow this link to Staffordshire County Council website.

School Admissions do not issue application forms as the Service is

keen to provide a paperless system in all its admissions processes

wherever possible. Their website also gives details if you wish to

apply for a mid-year transfer, but we would request that you contact the school first.

When Can I Apply?

To apply for a reception place at St Dominic's you must apply via Staffordshire County Council here: https://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/Education/Admissions-primary/Apply/Overview.aspx

You can also find our full admissions policy below.

If you would like any further information or any support with the application process please do not hesitate to contact the school office.

office@st-dominics-catholic.staffs.sch.uk

01785 413278

For us, every day is an open day - so please give us a call and we will arrange a time and date for you to visit us!

KEY DATES

1st November 2023 - applications open. You will need to click on this link to apply online.

https://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/Education/Admissions-primary/Apply/Overview.aspx

15th January 2024 - deadline for applications. You will need to click on this link to apply online.

https://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/Education/Admissions-primary/Apply/Overview.aspx

16th April 2024 - National Offer Day (parents receive outcomes)

Further information can be found on the Staffordshire County Council School Admissions website

Applying for a Nursery Place

You can apply for a nursery place from the start of the school term after your child’s third birthday. Nursery applications are a dealt with directly by the school.

Here at St Dominic's Nursery, we are dedicated to ensuring that your child has the best possible start to their educational, social and emotional life. If you are interested bringing your child for a 'stay and play' session, you would be most welcome. Please contact the school office to arrange a day / time for this.

To find our more or for an application pack please call us on 01785 413278 email: office@st-dominics-catholic.staffs.sch.uk

Our nursery has places for 3-4 year olds and is open 5 days per week (NB term time only).

Morning and afternoon sessions are available, please contact the school office re eligibility.

In Year Admissions

We welcome in-year admissions to all year groups. The process for this is different however, as it is not led centrally by the County Council Admissions Team. In the first instance, we would recommend that you contact us directly to arrange a time to come and look around and have a chat with the headteacher. You will then need to submit an in-year admissions form and return it to the school office.

Appeals Timetable

Staffordshire School Admissions

Catchment Area

St Dominic's Catholic Primary School is a Voluntary Aided Catholic Primary School for boys and girls aged 4 to 11 years. The school serves the parishes of The Immaculate Conception and St Dominic's, Stone, Our Lady's Swynnerton and Sacred Heart, Eccleshall. The school has capacity for 210 children on roll.

Oversubscription Criteria

Baptised Catholic children (see Note 2 below) who are looked after or previously looked after (See Note 3 below).
Baptised Catholic children (see Note 2 below) living in the parishes of The immaculate Conception and St Dominic’s – Stone, Our Lady’s –Swynnerton, Sacred Heart and Holy Michael’s – Aston by Stone
Other Baptised Catholic children (see Note 2 below)
Non-Catholic children who are looked after or previously looked after (See Note 3 below).
Non-Catholic children

Note 1

Children with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan that names the school MUST be admitted. This will reduce the number of places available to applicants. This is not an oversubscription criteria.

Note 2

In all categories, for a child to be considered as Catholic, evidence of Catholic Baptism or Reception into the Church will be required. For a definition of a Baptised Catholic, see the Appendix. Those who face difficulties in producing written evidence of Catholic Baptism or Reception into the Church should contact their Parish Priest.

Parents making an application for a Catholic child should also complete a Supplementary Information Form (SIF) which should be returned directly to the school. If you do not provide the information required in the Supplementary Information Form and return it by the closing date, together with all supporting documentation, this is likely to affect the criteria that your child is placed into, which is likely to affect your child’s chance of being offered a place at this school.

For the purposes of this policy, a looked after child living with a family where at least one of the carers is Catholic will be considered as Catholic. The carer must forward a copy of their own Catholic Baptismal or Reception certificate directly to the school in order for this priority to be given to the child as failure to do so will result in the looked after child being ranked as a non-Catholic.

Note 3

A “looked after child” has the same meaning as in section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989, and means any child who is (a) in the care of the local authority or (b) being provided with accommodation by them in the exercise of their social services functions (eg children with foster parents) at the time of making the application to the school. A “previously looked after child” is a child was looked after, but ceased to be so because he or she was adopted or became subject to a child arrangements order or special guardianship order and includes those children who appear (to the Board of Directors) to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state case as a result of being adopted.

Note 4

For all applicants the definition of a brother or sister is:

A brother or sister sharing the same parents
A half-brother or half-sister, where two children share one common parent
A step-brother or step-sister, where two children are related by a parents’ marriage or civil partnership, or where they are unrelated but their parents are living as partners.
Adopted or fostered children

Note 5

Distances are measured by the Local Authority on behalf of the school. The Local Authority uses a Geographical Information System (GIS) to calculate home to school distances in miles. The measurement is calculated using Ordnance Survey (OS) data from an applicant’s home address to the main front gate of the school. The coordinates of an applicant’s home address is determined and provided by the local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) and OS address point data.

In a very small number of cases, where the school is oversubscribed, it may not be possible to decide between the applications of those pupils who are the final qualifiers for a place when applying the published admission criteria.

For example, this may occur when children in the same year group live at the same address, or if the distance between the home and the school is exactly the same, for example, blocks of flats. If there is no other way of separating the application according to the admissions criteria and to admit both, or all, of the children would cause the Published Admission Number for the child’s year group to be exceeded, the Local Authority, on behalf of the Board of Directors, will use a computerised system to randomly select the child to be offered the final place.

The Board of Directors will, where possible, admit twins and all siblings from multiple births where one of the children is the last child ranked within the school’s published admission number.

A child’s home address refers to the address where the child usually lives with a parent or carer and will be the address provided in the Local Authority’s Common Application Form.

Where parents have shared responsibility for a child, and the child lives for part of the week with each parent, the home address will be the address provided in the Local Authority’s Common Application Form, provided that the child resides at that address for any part of the school week.

Parents may be requested to supply documentary evidence to satisfy the Board of Directors that the child lives at the address put forward by the parents.

If a place in the school is offered on the basis of an address that is subsequently found to be different from a child’s normal and permanent home address, then that place is liable to be withdrawn.

SCHOOL ENTRY

Parents must, by law, ensure that their child is receiving suitable full time education from the beginning of the term following the child’s fifth birthday, when they will have begun to be of compulsory school age.

Where a place is offered in the school, the pupil will be entitled to take up that place, on a full-time basis in the September following their fourth birthday.

A child’s parents may defer the date at which their child, below compulsory school age, is admitted to the school, until later in the school year but not beyond the point at which they reach compulsory school age and not beyond the first day of the summer term 2024.

Appeals
Parents who wish to appeal against the decision of the Governors to refuse their child a place in the school may apply in writing to the Chair of Governors