Walmsley CE Primary School – Admissions September 2021 & 2022
A message from Anthony Slack, Chair of Governors
Admission into Reception in September 2021
An application for a place at a Bolton primary school needs to be made online via the Council’s ‘Citizen Portal’ (see the Council’s website for further details).
The closing date for complete applications is 15th January 2021.
If you intend to seek priority allocation of a place at Walmsley CE School based on regular church attendance, you will also need to complete a Supplementary Information Form (available from the school office) and then hand this to a churchwarden/church official (who will arrange for the attendance record to be checked/validated prior to sign-off by Rev Carol/other minister and onward transmission to the school). The additional form should ideally be completed and handed in to a church official before the end of term to allow adequate time for checking etc.
As previously advised, the ‘qualifying period’ for church attendance ended on 17th March 2020 due to the closure of churches on this date.
It is mainly Gill Smallwood who is dealing with these forms and three dates have now been set for checking them: 30 November, 21 December and any final conclusions needed on 5 January. Gill is unable to look at forms on a one off basis but will work within those dates; she can be contacted on 07970 844249.
Admission into Reception in September 2022
The school’s Admissions Policy includes a number of criteria for determining the priority of allocating places in the event that the number of applications exceed the school’s ‘admission number’ (currently 45).
One of these relates to regular (at least monthly) attendance by the child at a Sunday service during the 12 month ‘reference period’ – which for 2022 admissions would have been 1st October 2020 to 30th September 2021.
A variation to the Admissions Policy was approved in August 2020 to recognise that, because of Covid restrictions, churches were not able to be fully open (and to acknowledge that recording of church attendance for school admission purposes had been suspended at the time of the first national lockdown in March 2020).
Although the variation was initially drafted to cater for applications for the September 2021 intake, the wording is equally valid for the ongoing situation – and it remains the case that, while our churches are open for services, they are still not able to open fully; they have restricted seating which does not accommodate all who would normally attend.
As a result, the recording of church attendance for potential applicants will not recommence until all the local churches are sufficiently able to accommodate all who would wish to attend.
This effectively means that it will not be possible to qualify for priority allocation of a place in September 2022 based on monthly church attendance (at least not for the normal 12 month period).
Please keep an eye on the school website and Parish Newsletter for any further updates.