Admissions Arrangements for New Year 7 Students

Fair Banding at Brompton Academy

At Brompton Academy we operate a 'Fair Banding' admissions process to ensure we have a balanced proportion of students from across the whole ability range - a comprehensive intake.  Students who wish to apply for a place at Brompton Academy must take a Fair Banding test to be considered for admission to the Academy and this will be required if their parents/carers intend to put Brompton Academy on the common admissions form - outlined below (CAF).  This test is usually a cognitive ability test(s) – it is not a pass or fail test. Students are asked to take it and their scores on the test are then used to place them in an ability band.  Students taking the test are placed in one of five ability bands representative of the national ability range.  Please see the graph below for information regarding the number of student places in each ability band.

These banding arrangements are an effective practice in schools providing fair oversubscription criteria, provided arrangements are fair objective and not used as a means of unlawfully admitting a disproportionate number of high ability children.

If places in a band are not filled or become vacant, for example, because parents/carers accept offers of places at other schools, and no applicants in those bands remain without a place, they must be evenly filled by children falling into the next nearest bands (i.e. the bands on either side, or below or above, if the first child is from the band above then the next must be from the one below).  This allocation is carried out randomly by the Local Authority.

Registration for Fair Banding has now closed.

Banding Children in Care or Children with an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP)

Children in Care and children with an EHCP where the Academy is named, who apply in the normal admissions round, must be included in any banding arrangements and given top priority within each band. 

The Over-Subscription Criteria

If the number of applications for admission to the Academy received via the Medway co-ordinated scheme is greater than the published admission number, applications will be considered against the criteria set out below. After the admission of students with EHCP where Brompton Academy is named on the EHCP after the Academy has been consulted and it has been agreed, the remaining applicants will be split into the quintile bands based on their NFER scores within the national profile. Within each band the criteria will be applied in the order in which they are set out below: 

a. Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) students and those children in public care (CIC).

b. Current family association (i.e. elder brother or sister in the Academy at time of application who will still be attending when the applicant child is admitted). In this context, brother or sister means:

• A natural brother or sister (including adopted siblings).

• Step brother or sister.

• Foster brother or sister.

• Those who live as brother or sister in the same house.

c. Children of staff.

d. Nearness of children’s homes.

e. Random selection within bands.

The Medway Common Application Form (CAF) should be used for applications to Brompton Academy.  These forms, found in the ‘Admissions to Secondary School’ brochure should be returned to the Primary School Headteacher by the due deadline.  

 Waiting Lists

Where in any year Brompton Academy receives more applications for places than there are places available, a waiting list will operate until at least late October.  This will be maintained by the UKAT Academies Trust and it will be open to any parent/carer to ask for his or her child’s name to be placed on the waiting list, following an unsuccessful application.  Children’s position on the waiting list will be be determined solely in accordance with the oversubscription criteria set out above where places become vacant they will be allocated to young people on the waiting lists in accordance with the oversubscription criteria.

Please click HERE to view the Determined Admissions Policy.