Admission Arrangements

Admission arrangements

Firwood Manor Preparatory School is a selective, independent, co-educational day school for children aged 2¾ years to 11 years.

Criteria for admission:

• The school’s ability to meet the needs of the pupil. (The national figure of 20% of pupils per year group with specific learning difficulties is used for guidance.)
• An available space in the appropriate year group,
• Pupils from outside the EU should meet immigration requirements.

Parents seeking admission for their child should, in the first instance, make an appointment to meet the Headteacher, Mrs. Pamela M. Wild, at the address below. It will be possible at this stage for parents to discuss at length the future educational needs of their child and how the school can best meet these needs.

Parents are then requested to complete a registration form enclosing a non-refundable registration fee of £50. The registration puts the child’s name on our lists for the term indicated on the form but does not guarantee or confirm a place.

Parents are asked to provide information with regard to age, sex and ethnic origin for monitoring purposes. An individual’s race, nationality, ethnic origin, sex, disability or religious beliefs do not form part of the selection process. In order to decide whether the school can meet the needs of a pupil, parents are requested to complete the part of the registration form detailing whether a pupil has a disability, additional educational need or medical condition. Failure to declare relevant information eg. additional needs, may result in permanent exclusion.

Entrance to the school is always by assessment and interview. The precise nature of these varies according to the age of the child. Before accepting a pupil into any GEMS school the Headteacher is responsible for ensuring that the school is able to provide for the needs of that pupil and may take external advice to determine whether the school can meet the needs of the pupil. Where it is practicable, reasonable adjustments are made to enable a pupil to be admitted. This may include the provision of services for which an additional charge is made.

If a pupil is transferring from another school, the school must be contacted to obtain the pupil’s records and to ascertain that there are no outstanding fees or issues. A place will not normally be offered if there is an outstanding debt from the previous school.

Subject to a successful assessment, a child will be made a firm offer. Parents must carefully read the current Terms and Conditions. Parents are then asked to sign a Form of Acceptance indicating acceptance of our terms and conditions, school rules and code of behaviour after which a deposit of £150 secures a place. This amount is credited to the final term’s fees.

Once parents have signed the Form of Acceptance, it becomes binding and a date of entry is agreed and confirmed in writing.

If there is not a space available, the pupil will be placed upon a waiting list. Priority will be given to pupils who have a sibling attending the school. Priority is also given to the children of staff but this is not guaranteed. Consideration may also be given to maintaining a gender balance.

When parents/guardians are not satisfied that the process of admissions has been carried out in line with the policy, they should raise these concerns with the headteacher in the first instance. If the parents are still not satisfied they may follow the complaints procedure.

Fees

The current scale of fees is set out on a separate sheet. Full fees are payable on or before the first day of the term for which they are due. The option of paying termly fees by standing order is available to parents; payments are by 10 monthly instalments.

Notice

A full term’s notice is required by the last day of the penultimate term before the removal of a pupil from the school. It is the parents’ responsibility to ensure that the school has received this notice and parents should ensure that they receive a written acknowledgement. Failure to provide such formal notice will require the payment of the following term’s fees in lieu of notice.

Under no circumstances can fees be remitted in respect of failure to attend after enrolment. Failure to attend after the securement of a place could result in the payment of a term’s fees if a full term’s notice has not been given in writing beforehand. The removal of a pupil from school may be required if fees have not been paid by the due date.

Data Protection

Early Years Settings, Schools, Local Authorities (LAs), the Secretary of State for Education and Skills through the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector for Schools through the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), and the National Assessment Agency (NAA), are all “data controllers” under the Data Protection Act 1998. In this capacity they determine the purpose(s) for which “personal data” (i.e. data about living individuals from which they can be identified) is processed and the way in which that processing is done.

Data controllers have to provide “data subjects” (individuals who are the subject of personal data) with details of who they are, the purposes for which they process the personal data, and any other information that is necessary to make the processing of the personal data fair, including any third parties to whom the data may be passed on. This is referred to as a “fair processing notice”.

The fair processing obligations on the data controller may appropriately be met by providing a fair processing notice to the parent (or the person(s) with parental responsibility). Firwood Manor Preparatory School’s Fair Processing Notice Layer 1 is issued to parents of Early Years children once a year in writing. This notice and the more detailed Layer 2 notice may be found along with the School’s Data Protection Policy in the public section of the School’s website.

Apart from the occasions described in the Fair Processing Notice the School does not release information with regard to pupils, parents or staff without the written permission of the person concerned.