Admissions Consultation

We are proposing some changes to our Admissions Policy. As such, we are launching a consultation on our school’s admissions arrangements and we would like to hear your views and any concerns you may have about the proposed changes. In line with the ‘School admissions code’, this consultation will run for six weeks, from 6^th December 2023 to 31^st January 2024. We are committed to ensuring our admissions arrangements continue to be open and fair, and we welcome your input as a valued member of our community.

The school is responding to the Memorandum of understanding 2023 to 2027 between the DfE and the Grammar Schools Heads Association with regard to widening access for pupils from lower income backgrounds to selective schools. To this end, the following amendments to our admissions arrangements have been proposed:

• A change in the oversubscription criteria at point 2 to admit up to 12 children who have been deemed selective and are in receipt of the Pupil Premium.

A full version of the proposed changes to the admissions arrangements and the rationale behind these proposed changes is available below, alongside the current and draft Admissions Policy. You can also request a hard copy from the school office at consultation@csgrammar.com.

Responses should be made in writing and can be delivered either in paper form to address or submitted electronically to consultation@csgrammar.com. Your response must outline your name, address and relationship to the school in order to be considered. If you have any trouble with responding to the consultation, or require accessibility adjustments to access any of the information, please let us know on email address and we will be happy to help.

All responses to the consultation should be received before 11:59pm on 31^st January 2024. Due to the need for us to consider the responses and make changes as necessary, we will unfortunately be unable to consider responses received after this time.

After the close of the consultation, the admissions authority will meet to consider all of the responses. The outcome of the consultation will be published on the school website as soon as possible once we have reached a decision, and the final admissions arrangements will follow shortly after. Hard copies of the final arrangements and consultation outcome will be made available upon request to all respondents of the consultation.

If you want to discuss anything in this letter further, please contact Nigel Walker, Headteacher via consultation@csgrammar.com

Rationale for the propsed changes to the Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School's Admissions Policy

The Trust Board of CSGS is committed to the widening access agenda and admitting children from all backgrounds as outlined in the Memorandum of understanding 2023 to 2027 between the DfE and the Grammar School Heads Association. The Trust Board wishes to promote access for under-resourced and disadvantaged children.

In the MoU of 2023-2027, the first two areas of joint working are a commitment by GSHA to:

• continue to promote to their member schools, and support them in implementing, priority for pupils eligible for pupil premium funding in their admissions oversubscription criteria (after looked after and previously looked after children, as mandated by the School Admissions Code) and consider how best to publicise this
• support member schools to design admission arrangements which increase access to their schools for disadvantaged pupils

The Trust Board have therefore added a specific oversubscription criterion regarding pupils eligible for pupil premium funding at point 2. This brings the school in line with two out of the other three grammar schools in the borough of Bexley and also with many of the grammar schools in the local area. In addition, of the 163 grammar schools in GSHA 136 already offer a priority to disadvantaged children in some way.

The Trust Board is also committed to supporting Bexley residents and has therefore written the criteria in two parts. The first part reserves up to 6 places for pupils eligible for pupil premium funding who live in the London Borough of Bexley.