Guidance for headteachers on the arrangements for admission to nursery classes for September 2008.

You will by now have almost completed your admissions process for the allocation of places in your nursery classes for 2007-2008. We are now planning the process for admission into nursery schools and nursery classes for the academic year 2008-2009.

We will collect the required data electronically, via anycomms, and guidance how to do this can be found at this link.

However for those schools who are now using the new E1 system the information will be retrieved from County Hall.

A faxed or emailed list is not acceptable. You are requested to provide a waiting list of children whose birthdates fall between 1.09.2004 and 31.08.2005 by Friday 11th April 2008. These will be passed on to the Early Years Childcare & Extended Schools Team for administration.

Additionally, you are requested to provide the number of children currently attending your nursery. This should be either emailed or telephoned through to:

Sue Brown

Senior Administrative Assistant

01603 223462 sue.brown@norfolk.gov.uk

Where a school wishes to prioritise a child according to the first rule, "Children with independently verified evidence of additional need", the head teacher will be expected to keep on file, for future verification, the evidence used to support the application. At present it is not possible to collect this information electronically. Where schools have a child or children on their waiting list with independently verified evidence of additional needs, they are asked to e-mail this information to Sue Brown in the Early Years, Childcare and Extended Schools Team giving the following information in respect of each child:

Name

Date of birth

Nature of evidence held on file

(E.g. SEN Statement, health visitor or speech therapy report, letter of support from a social worker etc.) It is not necessary to send the evidence to the early year's team.

The above information should be e-mailed to:

Sue Brown

Senior Administrative Assistant

01603 223462 sue.brown@norfolk.gov.uk

Where a nursery class is able to accommodate all of the children on the list, the school will be returned the list of children, to whom places in the nursery class may be offered, via anycomms. A letter should be sent from the school to parents offering the place on Friday 16th May 2008 (no earlier).

When children are offered places in a nursery class, it would be helpful to point out to parents in the letter that transport to and from early education provision is not available. Similarly a place at the nursery class does not guarantee a place in the school, neither is there an expectation that the child offered a place should apply for a place at that school. An example of a letter is attached.

Where a nursery class is oversubscribed, the Early Years, Childcare & Extended Schools Team will prioritise the applicants according to the admissions criteria. The school will be sent a list of the children who may be offered a place in the nursery class by Friday 16th May 2008 and a prioritised list of applicants who may be offered places if any places become vacant, via anycomms. If required, the Early Years, Childcare and Extended Schools Team will send letters to unsuccessful applicants suggesting alternative options.

Where a school receives a request for a place in the nursery class after Friday 11th April 2008, the information should be kept on file at the school and sent to the Early Years, Childcare and Extended Schools Team for allocation.

If there are any further queries please contact:

Sue Brown

Senior Administrative Assistant

01603 223462 sue.brown@norfolk.gov.uk

Timetable for the Admission to Nursery Classes