Admissions
Children of primary school age wishing to join our school may be admitted throughout the year subject to available spaces and numbers on roll. If you wish your child to be registered, please contact the school office and they will advise you of the current application procedure. You are welcome to visit the school by prior arrangement.
Reception Admissions
Castor C of E Primary School admits pupils into the Reception class in the September of the year in which they are five. We aim to make their start to formal schooling enjoyable and positive. We plan the intake of new children so that they feel secure and confident in school. There is a very gentle introduction to school with a part-time phased approach. Children start by spending most of their time in their own classroom and outside learning area, then gradually move about and mix with the whole school.
Starting Procedure
Transition begins in the Summer Term before children start school. They are invited into school for 'Taster sessions' in small morning or afternoon groups so that they can begin to make friends and meet their teacher. They become familiar with their new classroom and also separate from parents. Children then begin school part-time for a minimum of two weeks. During the first week of term Reception teachers and teaching assistants like to visit the child at home. This allows the teacher and parents to talk in confidence and helps the child to know his/her teacher a little better.
Staffing
Our Reception class has a qualified teacher and a teaching assistant. All teachers and teaching assistants who teach in Foundation Stage are appropriately trained in Early Years Education.
Registering your Child
Parents/carers are welcome to look around school before coming to a final decision. We hold three tours around the school in the Autumn term, please ring the office to find out when these are. If you then wish to register your child you can apply online using the Peterborough City Council website www.peterborough.gov.uk/admissions or you can apply by post by completing an application form. These can be obtained from the Council directly or from your local pre-school and/or nursery by the December prior to the Reception intake the following September. Parents will be notified in April stating which school your child has been allocated a place for starting school in September. Where there are spaces in other year groups, children of primary school age can be admitted at other times throughout the year.
Allocation of places follows Peterborough City Council’s policy on admissions criteria for primary schools, along with the appeals process. Please look online at https://www.peterborough.gov.uk/residents/schools-and-education/school-admissions/school-admissions-appeals for mor information.
Further Information:
As a Voluntary Controlled school the admissions authority for the school is the Local Authority (Peterborough City Council).
Castor School serves the villages of Castor, Ailsworth, Maholm, Sutton and Upton. We aim to take all the children of primary school age from these villages, if their parents wish it. Some places may be available for children from other areas. Our admission limit for each year group is different. From September 2019, we have set our PAN at 28, and in time this will feed through the school. In year groups where the PAN is currently lower than 28, we have admitted up to the number of 28.
Please see below the admission limit for each year group:
If the school is oversubscribed, then the Local Authority's admissions criteria will be applied. These are as follows:
The Local Authority will admit children with an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) or a statement of special educational needs which names a school. This will be in addition to any specific arrangements to specialist provision. The order of priority for all other children is as follows:
1. A 'looked after child' or a child who was previously looked after but immediately after being looked after became subject to an adoption, residence, or special guardianship order. 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 (see the definition in Section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989).
2. Children who appear to have been in state care outside of England and ceases to be in state care as a result of being adopted;
3. Children who are both living in the catchment area served by the school and have siblings of compulsory school age still attending the school at the time of their admission;
4. Other children living in the catchment area at the time of admission;
5. Children of members of staff, provided that they have been employed for a minimum of two years and/or are recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable skill shortage.
6. Children who do not live in the catchment area served by the school, but who have siblings of compulsory;
7. For admission to Junior (KS2) schools only; children who are in attendance at an Infant school on the same site at the time of application, have been in attendance at the school for at least a term prior to application and remain there until the end of the summer term;
8. Other children whose parents have requested a place who live outside the catchment area of the school.
In cases of equal merit, priority will be given to the child living nearest the school as measured by a straight line. Distance is measured in a straight line using the Local Land Property Gazetteer (LLPG) provided from the seed point located at the child's home address to the seed point for the school. The seed point is taken from the ordinance survey's (OS) Address- Base dataset. It is used to locate individual residential and school addresses using grid references as seed points.
Applications for places for Reception children should be made by 15th January, and parents will be notified of the outcome in April. All parents must complete a LA Preference form, and return it to their first choice school, with the child’s birth certificate and proof of address. Online applications can be made through the Peterborough City Council website.
Places are available from September for all children, at the beginning of the school year in which they will become five. All children start part-time (either mornings or afternoons only). After approximately one week, children attend full time.
Parents moving into the area or wishing to move their children from other schools should contact the school to arrange a visit. Following the visit, applications can be submitted to Peterborough Local Authority using the link below.