How we allocate school places

All Lancashire schools and academies have equal preference admission policies. Lancashire County Council, as the Local Authority, will apply the admission rules and give each child a single offer on the same day.

When you apply for a school place you are advised to list three schools. The school that you name as your highest preference would normally be the one you really want. For instance;

Bluefield Community High School
Brownfield CE (Aided) School
Greenfield Grammar School

The admission policy for each school is applied to your child's application along with all the other applications for the same school. At this stage, it doesn't matter whether you have listed the school as preference 1, 2 or 3, all applications are considered equally against each school's policy. It is where your child is placed within that policy that counts.

All applicants for each school are put into order according to the criteria in that school's policy.

Places at the school are filled in order up to the published admission number. The answer for each preference will either be a yes (place available) or no (place not available).

If more than one school can offer a place, then we look at the order of preferences. You will only get one offer, this will be the highest of those that can offer a place. If all three schools can offer a place, you will be offered your top preference. Sometimes not all schools can offer a place, for example:

Bluefield Community High School No
Brownfield CE (Aided) School Yes
Greenfield Grammar School Yes

In this case the offer will be Brownfield CE School. The Greenfield place will be offered to someone else.

If none of the schools preferred can offer a place, we will allocate a school that has places.