Staffordshire University Academy

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. 1Children in State Care / previously in state care — Children in State Care and children who ceased to be in state care because they were adopted or became subject to a residence order or special guardianship order; applies to such children in England and also previously from outside of England (given equal first priority as internationally adopted previously looked after children, IAPLAC, alongside LAC/PLAC per the 2021 School Admissions Code).
2. 2Siblings — Children who have an elder sibling in attendance at the preferred SUAT Academy and who will still be attending the SUAT Academy at the proposed admission date. A brother or sister is a child living at the same address who either shares one or both natural parents, is related by a parent's marriage, is adopted or fostered by a common parent, or is an unrelated child living at the same address whose parents live as partners.
3. 3Catchment area — Children living within the catchment area of the preferred SUAT Academy.
4. 4Distance — Other children arranged in order of priority according to how near their home addresses are to the main gate of the school, measured by GIS using Ordnance Survey data (via the Local Land and Property Gazetteer) where the Academy has an SLA with the Local Authority, or by Google Maps straight-line distance otherwise.

If two applications tie: Where it is not possible to accommodate all children within a particular category, remaining places are allocated according to the next criteria (unaccommodated catchment-area children are then ranked by distance, category 4). Where a limited number of spaces cannot be distinguished between applicants using the listed criteria (e.g. children living in the same block of flats), the child(ren) offered the available spaces are randomly selected, independently verified.

This is one section of a single Staffordshire University Academies Trust (SUAT) document that also sets separate nursery and Reception/primary oversubscription criteria (with distinct non-VA and formerly-Voluntary-Aided/faith variants) for roughly 20 other named academies; those are not reproduced here as the document does not explicitly state which named academy is VA versus non-VA, and the council's index names only Staffordshire University Academy for this document. Staffordshire University Academy is inferred to be the Trust's secondary (Year 7) academy — it is absent from the document's list of academies with nursery provision, carries a PAN of 150 (well above any primary academy's PAN in the trust's table, max 90), has no faith/'Primary'/'First' indicator in its name, and the document provides exactly one dedicated 'Secondary Schools' section with a single generic criteria list; the document itself never states in so many words that Staffordshire University Academy is that secondary academy. Children with an EHCP naming the school are admitted first by law, reducing places available under this policy (not itself a numbered criterion). A Sixth Form (Year 12) admissions section exists at trust level (minimum entry requirements set per academy, no interviews permitted) but no ordered oversubscription criteria list or PAN is published for Year 12, so no separate entry is given for that point of entry.

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.