Bader Primary School

When there are more applications than places for 2027-28 (Reception), 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 all previously looked after children, including those children who appear (to the admission authority) to have been in state care outside of England and ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted. Previously looked after children are children who were looked after but ceased to be so because they were adopted (or became subject to a child arrangements order 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) at the time of making an application to a school. A child is regarded as having been in state care outside of England if they were in the care of or were accommodated by a public authority, a religious organisation, or any other provider of care whose sole or main purpose is to benefit society. This includes children who were adopted under the Adoption Act 1976 (see Section 12 adoption orders) and children who were adopted under the Adoption and Children Act 20 02 (see Section 46 adoption orders). Child arrangements orders are defined in Section 8 of the Children Act 1989, as amended by Section 12 of the Children and Families Act 2014. Child arrangements orders replace residence orders and any residence order in force prior to 22 April 2014 is deemed to be a child arrangements order. See Section 14A of the Children Act 1989 which defines a 'special guardianship order' as an order appointing one or more individuals to be a child's special guardian (or special guardians).
2. 2Sibling link — Pupils who have a brother or sister permanently living at the same address, who are still at the school when the pupil begins. Please note, this only applies to siblings who are of compulsory school age, not younger siblings who attend a nursery setting attached to a school (Primary applications only). We define brother or sister as follows: A brother, sister, stepbrother, stepsister, adopted brother or sister, or children of partners who are permanently living at the same address as a family unit. In all cases, the parent who receives the Child Benefit for those children must permanently live at that address with the children. We will consider brothers or sisters who live in separate households because the parents are separated and have shared responsibility for the children under conditions covering exceptional social or medical reasons. This does not include separate families living together in the same property. If there are other family situations where there are different carers, for example, aunts, uncles or grandparents, each case will be considered individually.
3. 3Residence in the school's admission zone — Pupils permanently resident, for example, the address at which the child is registered for child benefit, who has named the school as a preference on the Common Application Form (proof of address may be required) within the admission zone who have returned a common application form by the closing date (15 January for primary applications). When a school is oversubscribed with in-zone applications for example, there are more applications from children living in the admission zone of the school than there are places available, we will allocate places: • to children permanently living in the admission zone (Criterion 3) according to their distance from the school measured in a straight line "as the crow flies"
4. 4Distance from the school — Pupils who live closest to a particular school measured in a straight line "as the crow flies". Where distances are equal, random allocation will be used as a tiebreaker, supervised by an independent person and independent of the school and the admission authority. Appeals The student and/or parents of students who are appeal against non-admission. For information please see https://www.stockton.gov.uk/article/2520/Appeal-a-school-place-decision False Information Where a school offer has been made based on application which has effectively denied a place of priority, the offer of a place will be withdrawn. Primary Co-ordinated Admissions Timetable Date / Period Activity Week commencing 9 Online applications go November 2026 issued to parents. Closing date for online 15 January 2027 forms. Week commencing 18 Lists of applications January 2027 schools, and other local Voluntary aided schools, Week commencing 1 applications based on March 2027 confirm preferences they Early March 2027 Liaison between admission Week commencing 16 Allocations finalised and March 2027 Allocation letters sent 16 April 2027 online applicants. Reasons June–July 2027 Appeal hearings held. The Local Authority uses a Geographic Information System, known as GIS, to identify and measure the distance from the central point of the home to the central point of the school. The distance is measured electronically from the central point of the school taken from the council maintained Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG) (the same point for all applications) to the central point of the home (including flats) also taken from the LLPG. The GIS undertakes all measures in the same way for every applicant, to ensure consistency and fairness. The oversubscription criteria will be available on Stockton Borough Council’s website in September for parents for admission in September 2027. Please note, for primary schools, attendance at a school nursery does not guarantee a place in the reception class of that school. not offered a place, have the right to on the appeals process and for the appeals timetable a fraudulent or intentionally misleading in the school to a student with a higher level (2027–2028) live. Common application forms and information applications and return of common application sent to voluntary aided schools, academies, free authorities. academies and free schools return ranked oversubscription criteria. Other local authorities can allocate. authorities to resolve offers. further liaison as required. to parents (or next working day). Emails sent to for refusal and appeal rights included.

Spark Education Trust is the admission authority for this school and states in this policy that it 'has formally adopted Stockton Borough Council's admissions arrangements for the 2027 intake for schools in the Borough', that the arrangements 'mirror those consulted on by Stockton Borough Council' and that 'no separate consultation was required as no changes have been made'. A child with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school must be admitted; that is not an oversubscription criterion. Transcribed verbatim from the trust's determined policy (criteria column read by word x-position, the document being laid out as a two-column criteria/explanatory-notes table). CORRECTION 2026-09-12: the rules below were re-read from the same determined document with a cell-by-cell table reader; the first reading split the two-column table by word position and lost or ran together part of the text.

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.