St Birinus School

When there are more applications than places for 2027-28 (Year 7), places are offered in this order of priority. Meeting a higher criterion beats meeting a lower one.

1. 1Looked-after and previously looked-after children — Looked-after children and children who were previously looked after, including those children who appear to have been in state care outside England but ceased to be so as a result of being adopted.
2. 2Children of staff — Children of a member of staff employed by Ridgeway Education Trust for two or more years at the time of application, and/or recruited to fill a vacant post for which there is a demonstrable skill shortage. The staff member must have parental responsibility (sole or shared) for the child.
3. 3Attends a Ridgeway Education Trust primary academy (Greater Didcot area) — Children who attend one of the Ridgeway Education Trust Primary academies (listed separately on the Trust's website) which falls within the Greater Didcot area (the catchment area of St Birinus School plus the catchment area of Sutton Courtenay Church of England Primary School).
4. 4Catchment area and sibling at a RET secondary school — Children who live in the designated (catchment) area and have a sibling on roll at a Ridgeway Education Trust secondary school at the time of application who will still be attending at the time of entry.
5. 5Outside catchment area, sibling at a RET secondary school — Children who live outside the designated (catchment) area but have a sibling on roll at a Ridgeway Education Trust secondary school at the time of application who will still be attending at the time of entry.
6. 6Attends a Didcot Area Partnership primary school — Children who attend one of the primary schools in the Didcot Area Partnership of schools.
7. 7Catchment area — Children who live in the designated (catchment) area.
8. 8All other children — All other children.

If two applications tie: In all categories 2-8, priority is given first to children eligible for Service Pupil Premium, then to children living closest to the school by straight-line distance calculated by Oxfordshire County Council (seed point of home address to the front door of the main Reception). If the distance tie-break produces an identical result for two or more applicants, random allocation is used, carried out by the Local Authority as an impartial third party. Identical twins/multiple-birth children tied for the last place are all offered places, exceeding PAN if necessary; where a female fraternal twin is offered a place at Didcot Girls' School, the male fraternal twin is automatically assigned a place at St Birinus School regardless of capacity.

Children with an EHCP naming St Birinus School are admitted first by law; the document explicitly states this 'is therefore not an oversubscription criterion' and it is not numbered, so excluded from the list. Feeder_schools lists the named Didcot Area Partnership primary schools (criterion 6); the Ridgeway Education Trust primary academies referenced in criterion 3 are not individually named in this document (it links to the Trust's website). The Trust also runs a joint 'Didcot Sixth Form' across the St Birinus School and Didcot Girls' School sites for Year 12 entry, with a PAN of 120 from St Birinus School, but this document explicitly defers Year 12 criteria and entry requirements to Didcot Sixth Form's own separate Admissions Statement, so no Year 12 entry is produced here as no criteria for that point of entry are published in this document.

Published by the admission authority. Meeting a criterion never guarantees a place — it sets the order places are offered in. Full detail, other entry points and previous years are on the Admissions tab.