Admissions

admissions

Admissions Policy for Year 7 entry in September 2024

General Principles

Wood Green Academy is an 11-18 mixed comprehensive situated in the Wednesbury North area of Sandwell. Its Published Admission Number (PAN) for Year 7 in September 2024 will be 260.

 

Wood Green Academy is a Specialist Sports College and admits 10% of PAN on Sporting Aptitude: i.e. up to 26 places in September 2024. In the event of there being insufficient applications for places based upon sporting aptitude any remaining places will be allocated to applicants who have not applied on the basis of sporting aptitude, using the criteria set out below.

 

The outcome of tests for sporting aptitude will not affect candidates eligibility for a place should they satisfy a higher priority.

 

Although there is no guarantee of a place, the main principle of admission to Wood Green Academy is to maintain the character of the school as a comprehensive school, providing for the needs of young persons within the 11-18 age range, who live primarily in the North Wednesbury Ward defined below, which is the Academy’s ‘priority admission area’.

 

The academy will endeavour to provide places for pupils who live outside the priority admission area whose parents wish them to attend Wood Green Academy provided that they can be accommodated within the PAN and our oversubscription criteria (see below). The academy participates in the Local Authority co-ordinated scheme and all deadlines within that should be adhered to by all applicants.

 

Offers of places will be made on the basis of information provided on the Common Application Form. As required by Regulations the school will give first priority to applications on behalf of children in public care (looked after children). Children with statements of Special Educational Needs naming the academy must also be admitted. This will reduce the number of places available under the academy’s PAN for other applicants.

Oversubscription

When applications for admission exceed the number of places available the following criteria will be applied, in the order set out below, to decide which children to admit. These criteria will continue to be used to allocate places should any fall vacant after the initial allocation:

 

 

1. A ‘looked after child’ 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 including those children who appear to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted. A looked after child is a child who is (a) in the care of a local authority, or (b) being provided with accommodation by a local authority in the exercise of their social services functions as defined by section 22 (1) of the Children Act 1989 at the time of making the application for a school place. 

 

2. Children residing in the priority admission area with a brother or sister (sibling) attending the school at the time of application with a reasonable expectation they will be on roll at the school at the date of proposed admission. This includes siblings in the sixth form. 

 

3. Children residing in the priority admission area, priority being given to such children by the shortest Distance from School (see definition below). 

 

4. Children residing outside the priority admission area with a brother or sister (sibling) attending the school at the time of application with a reasonable expectation they will be on roll at the school at the date of proposed admission. This includes siblings in the sixth form. 

 

5. Children residing outside the priority admission area, priority being given to such children by the shortest Distance from School.

 

Definitions and Further Details

The Priority Admission Area (Catchment Area)

The priority admission area (catchment area) is the Wednesbury North Ward. The map to the right hand side shows the boundaries of the priority admission area (catchment area).

 

Please click on the map to enlarge. 

Sporting Aptitude

The selection procedure for Sporting Aptitude is as follows;

 

  1. Sporting Aptitude Testing (2 dates will be available)
  2. Test analysis
  3. Ranking of Test results, identification and removal of names already offered a place through the criteria laid out above for 90% of PAN set out
  4. The top 26 (10% PAN) of remaining ranked applicants to be offered a place
  5. In the event of any of those identified in 4 above not accepting the place offered, the next name in the rank order will be offered that

Sporting Aptitude Testing

Tests are non-specific and will assess the following:

 

Endurance, explosive power, hand eye co-ordination, reaction time, agility, balance, flexibility and strength.

 

Further details are available from the academy.

Siblings

Siblings are defined as the following:

  • – Brothers and sisters who have the same parents and live at the same address,
  • – Half brothers and half sisters where one of the parents is the same and the children live at the same address.
  • – Step brothers and step sisters where the children are related by the marriage of their parents and live at the same address.
  • – Adopted brothers and sisters living at the same address.
  • – Children of two unmarried parents living at the same address.
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Proof of sibling link may be required.

Distance from the Academy

The measurement used will be a straight line distance from the main entrance to the academy on St Paul’s Road to the main door of the residence, with those living nearest to the academy being given priority. Residences with a common front door (e.g. apartments) will be treated equally with the measurement taken to that common front door.

Residence

The residence is defined as the address at which a parent with parental responsibility lives and is the permanent residence of the child for the majority of the school week (Sunday to Thursday night).

Tie Breaker

In the event that 2 or more applicants tie for last place during the application process the final place shall be decided on the tossing of a coin.

Waiting Lists

The parents/carers of students who are unsuccessful in gaining a place in the normal round of applications will be
placed on the waiting list by the Sandwell Admissions Team, irrespective of whether they make an appeal against the
decision not to offer them a place. If a place becomes available, it will be allocated from the waiting list according to
the Oversubscription Criteria listed above. This waiting list is maintained until the end of December 2023 by the LA
and until the end of the academic year, July 2024 by the academy.


Parents/carers must contact the academy, or fill in the form on the academy website, at the beginning of each
academic year if they wish for their child’s details to be kept on the waiting list. The waiting list is maintained
strictly in order of the priorities in this Policy and not based on the date the application was added to the list.
Therefore applications received after the allocation of places may receive a higher ranking than those who may
have been on the list for some time if they have a higher priority in the Oversubscription Criteria. 

 

Sporting Aptitude will not be used in determining position on waiting lists.


The academy has to admit any pupil who is the subject of a ‘direction’ by the LA or allocated according to the local
Fair Access Protocol and any such pupils will take precedence over the waiting list.

Appeals

Any parent who is not offered a place at Wood Green Academy will have the right to appeal to an independent panel. Appeal papers will normally be sent out with offer letters to all those parents who were offered a school lower on their preference list than Wood Green Academy. On completion, these appeals papers should be headed with the academy name and address and returned to the Local Authority. The closing date on the appeals papers must be adhered to.

 

Appeals will ordinarily be heard before 6th July or the first working day afterwards if the 6th is a weekend.

Admissions Policy for Year 12 entry in September 2024

Section 1 - General Principles

The academy offers a range of academic and vocational qualifications to sixth form students and some of these
require minimum grades at GCSE. The academy’s policy is to ensure that students accepted into the sixth form can
be placed on appropriate courses where they are likely to succeed. For this reason all applicants are invited to
attend a meeting with some of our sixth form staff to discuss the most suitable courses of study. 

 

The sixth form capacity for Year 12 commencing in September 2024 will be 140. The external PAN is set at 1.
All students of year 11 will be encouraged to apply for the sixth form. 

 

Applications from students wishing to transfer from another school and who meet the relevant entry requirements will be considered if there are places available on the preferred courses of study after allocation has been made to the current Year 11 candidates. In all cases the same admission criteria and oversubscription criteria will apply (see below)

Section 2 - Definitions and Details

Application Deadlines

Internal and external candidates should apply by the appropriate date stated in the current sixth form prospectus.

Academic Requirements

For entry onto our academic pathway courses, the following qualifications are required:


  • – A minimum of 5 grade 5-9s at full GCSE level
  • – A minimum grade 5 in English Language or English Literature

For entry to full-time Vocational Pathway- Extended Diplomas, the Sixth Form entry requirements are:


  • – A minimum of 5 GCSE grades at 4-9, which must include a grade 4 or above in Maths and either English Language or English Literature 

All courses have additional subject specific entry requirements which can be found on the academy’s website. The academy will be pleased to discuss any individual concerns about meeting these.


Meeting the requirements of any course is no guarantee that the applicant will automatically be offered a place on his or her preferred choices.


Entry into year 13 for external applicants will depend on the requirements for the course for which entry is sought, the availability of a place within that course and the applicant’s results from any modules taken in year 12.

Oversubscription Criteria

When applications for admission exceed the number of places available the following criteria will be applied, in the order set out below, to decide which candidates to admit. These criteria will continue to be used to allocate places should any fall vacant after the initial allocation:

 

  • – Children in Public Care (Children in care) and children who were previously in public care but ceased to be because they were adopted (or became subject to a residence order or special guardianship order).
  •  
  • – Applications from internal candidates who meet the academic requirements will be considered first. Where a particular course is oversubscribed, and the academy cannot reasonably run a parallel group the places will be offered to those internal candidates who have the better grades in all their GCSEs. Places will be offered on any alternative courses that have vacancies to any student affected by this criterion. 
  •  
  • – Any remaining places available on a particular course will be offered to any external applicants that have applied as above. If the number of applicants exceeds the number of available places, places will be allocated to those who have the best grades in all their GCSEs.

Right to Appeal

If an application is refused there is a statutory right of appeal to the Independent School Appeal Panel. Further details of the appeal procedure will be provided with the letter explaining why the application has been refused. Appeals may be lodged by either the parent or the student.

 

Wood Green Academy is an 11-19 over-subscribed National Support School specialising in Sport, Maths and Computing.

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