The Senior Manager for Admissions and Place Planning presented a report on behalf of the Director of Children, Families and Education which invited the committee to determine the Council’s admission arrangements for community and voluntary controlled primary and secondary schools and the co-ordinated schemes for 2025-2026. The Wirral Fair Access Protocol had also been amended to reflect feedback from Wirral schools.

The report noted that the Council in its capacity as Local Education Authority was required to determine admission arrangements for community and voluntary controlled primary and secondary schools. The Council was also required to have in place a co-ordinated scheme for admissions to all primary and secondary schools including Academy schools, in 2025-26. The Council was required to have in place a Fair Access Protocol agreed with the majority of schools which ensured that there was a fair and balanced approach to admitting unplaced children, particularly those who were most vulnerable, outside the normal admissions round. The Wirral Fair Access Protocol had been developed in partnership with local schools. All admission authority schools must participate in order to ensure that children were allocated a place quickly.

Members discussed the consequences of schools opting out of in-year admissions co-ordination and were informed that they would still have to inform the local authority of all applications they received and their outcomes.  They also queried how funding works for children being placed at an oversubscribed school when they have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and were informed that once a school has been chosen, funding based on the EHCP needs of the child would be allocated to that school. Members further discussed policy on children returning to school from elective home education and how children might be affected should they transition to another sex while attending a single sex school. They were informed that children returning from home education to a school would go through the same process as any child wishing to transfer in-year from another school. Children going through a transition would be supported and would be able to remain within their current school unless they chose to move.

Resolved – That

1. The admission arrangements for community and voluntary controlled schools and the Wirral co-ordinated schemes for 2025-2026 as set out in Appendices 1 and 2 to the report be agreed.

2. The revised Wirral Fair Access Protocol as set out in Appendix 3 of this report be agreed.