Admission to Sixth Form

There are two sixth forms within the County Borough -a community school Welsh­medium sixth form at Ysgol Gymraeg Ystalyfera Bro Dur for which the Council is the admission authority and a voluntary aided school sixth form at St Joseph’s RC School & 6th Form Centre for which the school’s governing body is the admission authority.

Young people who are in receipt of a statement of special educational needs which identifies a particular sixth form provision will be guaranteed a place at that school.

• Oversubscription criteria (Welsh-medium 6th Form)

Parents and pupils have the right to express a preference which will be considered individually and complied with wherever possible. In the event of the number of requests for places exceeding the number of places available, preferences will still be considered but the priorities set by the Council will be applied. In deciding which young people to admit to the sixth form, the Council applies the criteria set out below in the order of priority shown -a) being the highest priority. The Council will not normally exceed the sixth form’s admission number.

a) Young people looked after or previously looked after by a local authority in Wales, as defined in section 74 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 or, or England as defined in Section 22 of the Children Act 1989.

b) Young people who have an older sibling who will be on register at the sixth form when they are admitted. A “sibling” is defined as a full sibling, a half sibling (i.e. one shared parent), a step sibling (i.e. the child of a person co­habiting with a parent), a fostered sibling or an adopted sibling. In each case, at the time of the application the sibling must reside at the same address as the child or young person. Any sibling connection must be clearly stated in the application. In the case of multiple births, if it is not possible to offer all young people a place in the sixth form, the parents will be asked to decide which young person should be offered a place first or parents may wish to consider an alternative setting for all young people.

If young people are equally entitled to a place in the sixth form in categories a) and b) above then priority will be given to the young person living nearest. This is measured by the shortest suitable walking/travel route between the home and the sixth form. The Council uses a Geographical Information System to calculate the shortest distance.

Only applications received by the published closing date for receipt of application forms will be considered in the initial round of allocation of places. Application forms received after the closing date will be considered as late applications. These will be considered on a weekly basis once the initial allocation is complete and places will be allocated in accordance with availability.
In all cases evidence of permanent residence of the pupil at time of application must be supplied if required.

Once an offer of a school place has been made the Council will only withdraw that offer where the place offered has been on the basis of a fraudulent or intentionally misleading application from a parent or young person (for example, a false claim to residence in a catchment area) which effectively denied a place to a child with a stronger claim. A school place will not be withdrawn once a child or young person has started at the school except where that place was fraudulently obtained. In deciding whether to withdraw the place the length of time that the child had been at the school will be taken into account. Where a place is withdrawn on the basis of misleading information the application will be considered afresh and a right of appeal offered if a place is refused.
The home address is considered to be the young person’s along with their parent’s principal place of residence (or the young person’s alone if they are living independently) on the published date, i.e. where they are normally and regularly living. If a young person is resident with friends or relatives (for reasons other than fostering arrangements) the friends or relatives address will not be considered for allocation purposes.

Where parents have shared responsibility for a young person and the young person lives with both parents for part of the school week then the home address will be determined as the address where the young person lives for the majority of the school week, e.g. 3 out of 5 days. Parents and young people living independently will be required to provide documentary evidence to support the address they wish to be considered for allocation purposes.

If a parent or young person is dissatisfied with the result of an application for a particular sixth form an appeal may be submitted to the independent Admission Appeals Panel by 25th March 2022. Any decision made by the Panel being binding on the Council. If the appeal is not successful, further applications for a place at the same sixth form will not be considered for the same academic year unless the Admissions Officer, School and Family Support Team determines that there are significant and material changes the circumstances.

Although a separate policy provision, the Council recognises the inter-relationship between admission and home to school transport and advises parents to refer to the Council’s Home to School Travel policy when applying for a place a school for
their child. The policy is available at www.npt.gov.uk