Schools

Placing Request Information

General Information
There are 8 secondary schools, 44 primary schools, 3 special schools and a range of other educational establishments within South Ayrshire Council managed through Education, Culture and Lifelong Learning.

The school nearest to you will be able to supply you with a list of names, addresses, telephone numbers and other relevant information on the schools within the Council.

Entry Age
Your child will be automatically accepted for primary education in August if his/her fifth birthday falls between 1 March of that same year and the last day of February the following year.

You can, however, make a request for early entry to school for a child whose fifth birthday falls after the above period.

Registering your Child
Entry to primary schools in South Ayrshire is on a once-a-year basis – at the start of the new session in August each year.

If your child is due to start school in the August, he/she should be registered in your catchment primary school before the end of the preceding January. Local advertisements issued in January each year provide full details on how to register your child.

Where there are sufficient places available, and you have not submitted a placing request for another school, your child will be automatically enrolled, where there are not enough spaces available for catchment pupils the Authority will determine which children should be enrolled and you will be notified of the procedures for doing this in advance of any decision being made.

Primary School
Normally, your child will attend the catchment primary school. The school itself can provide details of the actual boundaries of the area it serves.

You may also make a placing request for your child to attend a school other than the catchment school. However, once you have submitted a placing request your child will no longer automatically be considered for a place at the catchment school. (see Placing Requests).

Transfer from Primary to Secondary School
A group of primary schools in an area is normally associated with a single secondary school. Pupils normally transfer from the primary school to its associated secondary school between the ages of 11 and 12 years.

Your catchment primary school will be able to tell you the name of the secondary school to which your child would normally transfer after the primary 7 stage.

You may also make a placing request for your child to attend a secondary school other than the one associated with the primary school. However, once you have submitted a placing request your child will no longer automatically be considered for a place at the catchment school. (see Placing Requests).

In South Ayrshire Council all secondary schools are delineated. This means that pupils attending the associated primary schools on a successful placing request are required to make a further placing request to attend the secondary school unless they already reside within its delineated area.

Denominational and Non-Denominational Schools
Roman Catholic schools within South Ayrshire Council serve a defined area. You may enrol your child, therefore, either at the catchment denominational school or at the non-denominational school. If you wish to move to the other school at a later date you will need to submit a placing request application.

Additional Support Needs
If your child has additional support needs, you can obtain advice and guidance from the Psychological Service. The Principal Psychologist can be contacted at County Buildings, Wellington Square, Ayr, KA7 1DR. Tel: 01292 612649.

Your child may continue to be educated in the catchment school or, in some cases, in a special unit based in the school.

However, where a learning difficulty or a physical impairment is particularly severe, it may be better for your child to be educated in a separate special day school or residential school.

In any event, decisions on how the additional support needs of your child might best be met will be taken only after full consultation with you.

Full information about additional support provision in your area can be obtained from Education, Culture and Lifelong Learning. You may also obtain information about other special schools not managed by the Council to which Education, Culture and Lifelong Learning sends pupils.

Pupil Travel
Pupils in South Ayrshire travel to school daily. South Ayrshire Council provides free transport for all primary pupils who live more than one mile from their catchment school, however from August 2008 free transport will only be available for those primary school pupils who live more than 2 miles from their catchment school (by the recognised shortest safe walking route) and to secondary pupils who live more than three miles from their catchment school (by the recognised shortest safe walking route).

The policy for primary schools is more generous than that prescribed by statute. Arrangements for free transport may be made for children with additional support needs. The authority does not provide transport for those pupils in receipt of a placing request other than in exceptional circumstances.

Placing Requests
Your child will normally attend the catchment primary school and transfer from it, after the primary 7 stage, to its associated secondary school.

However, as a parent, you have the right to make a placing request for your child to be educated in a school other than the catchment school. If you choose to make a placing request you should remember that your child will no longer automatically be considered for a place at their catchment school.

The authority will advertise its arrangements for placing requests in December each year.

There are sound educational reasons for trying to ensure that the transfer or admission of children to a school takes place at the start of a school session. The Lifelong Learning Committee, therefore, advises, all parents who desire a placing request (other than those who are moving home to a new area) to seek this to take effect only at the start of the next school session.

Should you wish to make placing requests in respect of more than one school for your child, the duty of the authority as defined by the Education Act applies only to the first named school.

Every effort, however, will be made to try to meet parental wishes, but you should note that it is not always possible to grant every placing request to a particular school.

If following a successful Placing Request you wish your child to return to their catchment school you will need to submit a request to ‘Return to the Catchment School’ using the application at the front of this leaflet.

How to make a Placing Request
If you wish to make a placing request you must complete a separate copy of the Placing Request Form for each child involved.

Placing Request Form

You do not have to give a reason for making a placing request. If, however, there are more requests than places available, your case may well be strengthened if your reasons are known.

Please send the completed form(s) to:

Education, Culture and Lifelong Learning
County Buildings
Wellington Square
Ayr
KA7 1DR

You are also required to inform the head teacher of your catchment school that you are making a placing request.

You should receive an acknowledgement from Education, Culture and Lifelong Learning within 5 working days of receipt of your application.

Placing requests from pupils other than P1 or S1 to take effect at the start of the next session will not be advised of the outcome until the end of June.

Every effort will be made to meet parents’ requests within the limits of the accommodation and places available in schools. Your placing request will be considered against a set of guidelines which set out the Council’s priorities for admission. (See Guidelines and Criteria).

If your request is refused
If your placing request is refused, or if you are not advised by the Council of its decision on your request by 30 April (if your request relates to P1 or S1) you may lodge an appeal. Information on how to appeal will be contained in the letter of refusal.

If you make a placing request at another time of the year and you are not advised of a decision within 2 months your request may be deemed to be refused, therefore, you may lodge an appeal.

You will, by the time of the appeal, know the reasons why your placing request was refused and you will be given the opportunity to present your case in person or through a representative, whichever you prefer.

How decisions are made
The responsibility for decisions on placing requests lies with members of the Education, Culture and Lifelong Learning directorate.

However, where there are more requests than places available for a particular school or a particular stage in a school, all requests will be considered by a Local Attendance Council who will then make recommendations to the responsible member of the Education, Culture and Lifelong Learning directorate.

You will be given the opportunity of presenting your case orally to the Local Attendance Council. Should this situation arise, you will be advised in good time of the date and location of the appropriate meeting and you will be asked at that time if you wish to attend. You may be accompanied at this meeting by a friend.

Guidelines and criteria
The Local Attendance Council and members of the Education, Culture and Lifelong Learning directorate work to a set of guidelines in reaching decisions on placing requests. These guidelines set out the Council’s priorities for admission and can be summarised as follows:

Primary
Where there are places available in a primary school, priority will be given to:

those children who live in its delineated area but have been unable, for whatever reason, to be accommodated in the catchment school to date;
those children who will be entering P1 and who will be moving into the catchment area before the start of the school session;
thereafter, to early entry children who live in the schools delineated area and who are considered suitable for primary education.

Secondary
Where there are places available in a secondary school, priority will be given to:

those children who live in its delineated area, but have been unable, for whatever reason, to be accommodated in the catchment school to date;
those children who will be entering S1 and who will be moving into the catchment area before the start of the school session;
those children who live in the delineated area of an associated primary school but who have been unable to be accommodated in the area’s secondary school to date.

General
Thereafter, where there are more placing requests for primary or secondary than there are places available, priority will be given to:

(a) those cases which include medical grounds supported by the family doctor and the community medicine specialist;
(b) those children who do not live in the delineated area, but who attend primary schools within it; (c) the presence of older brothers or sisters in the school.

Other Factors
Other factors which the Local Attendance Council and the responsible member of the Education, Culture and Lifelong Learning directorate may wish to take account of include:

single parent families, where, for example, proximity of school to the parent’s place of work would be advantageous for the care and well-being of the child;
distance between home and school;
the suitability of particular teaching methods to the child’s needs or the availability of subjects which he/she was previously studying.

Where it is impossible to identify priority applications, Local Attendance Councils have been advised that the only reasonable solution is to carry out a ballot. This may be done by the Local Attendance Council or the responsible member of the Education, Culture and Lifelong Learning directorate.

Why requests are sometimes not granted
The Council may refuse a placing request where granting it would, amongst other reasons:

make it necessary for the Council to take additional teaching staff into employment;
give rise to significant expenditure in extending or altering the school’s accommodation or facilities;
be seriously detrimental to the continuity of the child’s education;
be likely to be seriously detrimental to order and discipline in the school;
be likely to be seriously detrimental to the educational well being of pupils attending the school;
require the formation of an additional class or appointment of an additional teacher at a future stage of the child’s education at primary school;
have the consequence that the capacity of the school would be exceeded in terms of pupil numbers;
mean that the education is not suited to the child;
the authority had already decided that the child should no longer attend the school;
in the case of special schools, the child does not have additional support needs requiring the education or facilities available;
prevent the authority from reserving places for incomers to the catchment area;
in the case of mainstream schools, the education provided would not be suited to the child or would cause
unreasonable expenditure.

Specific information may be found in:

Education (Scotland) Act 1980 (The Stationery Office)
Education (School and Placing Information) (Scotland) Regulations 1982 and Amendment Regulations 1990/93 (S1 1982 No. 950) (S.125)
Education (Appeal Committee Procedures) (Scotland) Regulations 1982 (S1 1982 No. 1736)
Education (Placing in Schools Etc. Deemed Decisions) (Scotland) Regulations 1982 (S1 185 No. 1733)
Scottish Education Department Circulars 1074, 1080, 1083 and 1093 (SEED, New St Andrew’s House, Edinburgh)
Choosing a School – a Guide for Parents (SEED, New St Andrew’s House, Edinburgh)
Education (Scotland) Act 1996
Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc. Act 2000
Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004

Education, Culture and Lifelong Learning
South Ayrshire Council
County Buildings
Wellington Square
AYR
KA7 1DR
Tel: (01292) 612268

A text only version of this publication is available in Urdu and Chinese. For further information please contact Council staff on (0845) 601 2020