St Mary’s is a Roman Catholic Primary School in St Teresa of Calcutta Roman Catholic Academy Trust.  The Academy Trust is the admissions authority, and the Local Governing Board is responsible for taking decisions on applications for admissions.
For the school’s year commencing September 2025 the Trust has determined that the number of children to be admitted to Reception will be 60.
The school’s role is to participate in the mission of the Catholic Church by providing a curriculum, including Catholic religious education and worship, which will help children to grow in their understanding of the Good News and in the practice of their faith. The school will help the children develop fully as human beings and prepare them to undertake their responsibilities as Catholics in society. The school requires all parents applying for a place here to understand and respect this ethos and its importance to the school community. This does not affect the rights of parents who are not of the Catholic faith to apply for a place here.
Admissions to the school will be determined by the governing board. Parents must complete a Local Authority Preference Form or apply online via the website.

Supplementary Form

If you wish to have your application considered against the school’s religious criteria then you must ALSO complete the supplementary form which is available from the school.
If there are fewer than 60 applications, all applicants will be offered places. If there are more applications than the number of places available, the following oversubscription criteria will be applied:
1. Baptised Roman Catholic Looked After Children and Baptised Roman Catholic previously Looked After Children and Looked After Children adopted from overseas.
2. Baptised Roman Catholic children who will have a brother or sister attending the school at the time of admission
3. Other Baptised Roman Catholic children who are resident in the parish of Saint Mary and Saint Philip Neri, Radcliffe
4. Other Baptised Roman Catholic children resident in another parish
5. Other Looked After Children and previously Looked After Children
6. Other children (Non-Roman Catholic children) who have siblings in the

PROOF OF ADDRESS MUST BE PROVIDED WITH ALL APPLICATIONS FOR ADMISSION
If it is not possible to offer places for all applications within any criterion above, priority will be given to those living closest to the school measured by [the method used by the local authority]. In the event of distances being the same for 2 or more applicants, places will be allocated by [method used by the local authority].
Notes for Applicants:
a. Parents/applicants should check carefully whether they are resident within the parish boundary of Saint Mary and Saint Philip Neri. Please consult school for verification.
b. All applications will be considered at the same time and after the closing date for admissions which is 15th January 2025 (primary).
c. Applications received after this date will be treated as a late application and will not be considered until after the main allocation of places has taken place.
d. Admission to the Reception Class is separate to that for the Nursery. Attendance at the Nursery does not give any child any guarantee or priority when it comes to admission to the Reception Class.
e. A Looked After Child is a child who is (a) in the care of a Local Authority, or (b) being provided with accommodation by a Local Authority in the exercise of their Social Services functions (under section 22(1) of the Children Act 1989. A previously Looked After Child is one who immediately moved on from that status after becoming subject to an adoption, residence or special guardianship order. Included in this definition are those children who appear to the governing board to have been in state care outside of England and who ceased to be in state care as a result of being adopted.
f. For a child to be considered as Catholic, evidence of a Catholic Baptism or reception into the Catholic Church is required. Written evidence of reception into the Catholic Church can be obtained by referring to the Register of Receptions, or in some cases a sub-section of the Baptismal Registers of the Church in which the Rite of Reception took place. If, for example, a child has been baptised in the Church of England and the parents are subsequently admitted to the Catholic Church through the RCIA programme, the child must also be admitted to the Church by the Rite of Reception.
g. The governing board will require written evidence in the form of a Certificate of Reception before applications for school places can be considered for categories of ‘Baptised Catholics’. A Certificate of Reception is to include full name, date of birth, date of reception and parent(s) name(s). The certificate must also show that it is copied from the records kept by the place of reception.
h. Those who have difficulty obtaining written evidence of baptism for a good reason, may still be considered as baptised Catholics but only after they have been referred to the parish priest who, after consulting with the Episcopal Delegate will decide how the question of baptism is to be resolved and how written evidence is to be produced in accordance with Canon Law.
i. Home Address is considered to be the address where the child normally lives. Where care is split and a child moves between two addresses, the household in receipt of the child benefit would normally be the address used but the admission authority body reserves the right to request other evidence as fit the individual circumstance. Applicants should not state the address of another relative or person who has daily care of the child.
j. ‘Sibling’ is defined in these arrangements as full, half or stepbrothers and sisters, adopted and foster brothers and sisters who are living at the same address and are part of the same family unit. This does not include cousins or other family relationships.
k. If the school is oversubscribed, a waiting list for children who have not been offered a place will be kept and will be ranked according to the admission criteria. The waiting list
does not consider the date the application was received, or the length of time a child’s name has been on the waiting list. This means that a child’s position on the list may change if another applicant is refused a place and their child has higher priority in the admissions criteria. Parents will be informed of their child’s position on the waiting list. l. For ‘In Year’ applications received outside the normal admissions round, if places are available, they will be offered to those who apply. If there are places available but more applicants than places, then the published oversubscription criteria will be applied and any children not offered a place will be added to the waiting list described in note k.
m. If an application for admission has been turned down by the Governing Board, parents may appeal to an independent appeals panel. Parents must be allowed at least twenty school days from the date of notification that their application was unsuccessful to submit that appeal. Parents must give reasons for appealing in writing and the decision of the appeals panel is binding on the governors.
n. The governing board reserve the right to withdraw the offer of a school place where false evidence is received in relation to the application.
o. It is the duty of governors to comply with regulations on class size limits for children aged between rising five and seven. The governing board may exceed the regulations for twins and children from multiple births where one of the children is the 30th child admitted. This also applies to in-year applicants who are looked after/previously looked after children of UK service personnel or children who move into the area for whom there is no other school available within a reasonable distance.
p. If a child is a “summer born child”, parents may request that the date their child is admitted to school is deferred to later in the school year. However, the child must start school before the end of that school year. If a parent wishes their child to be educated out of their normal school year (kept back a year), they must discuss this with the school before applying. However, the final decision on this rests with the headteacher.
q. Parents may request that their child attend school part-time until he/she reaches his/her fifth birthday.

If you are interested in an FS1/ Nursery place for your child, please call in and collect an ‘Expression of Interest Form’. You can complete this at any time from your child’s birth. With this form we will need copies of your child’s birth and baptism certificates. Please bring the originals to school and we will copy them for you.

Children start in FS1/ Nursery in the September after their third birthday.

If you have given us your child’s information and certificates we will contact you in the November/ December before your child is due to start in our nursery in September. You will be sent a letter asking whether you still require a place for your child and inviting you to a meeting in January.

In January, following your attendance at the meeting, you will be sent a second letter asking whether you require a morning or an afternoon place. Further information regarding the procedure and criteria will be given to you at the meeting in January.

When we have allocated the places we will send you a third letter in March informing you of the decision.

Please note that if you move house at anytime following the completion of the ‘Expression of Interest Form’, you will need to call into school to update your form.

If at any point in our admissions procedure we do not receive a reply from you, we will presume that you no longer require a place for your child.

Places in FS1/ Nursery

At St Mary’s, we have part- time morning places and part-time afternoon places. When there are spaces available, we offer some full- time places to parents who are willing to pay or who are entitled to the 30 hours free child care scheme.

Expression Of Interest In An FS1 Nursery Place Form

It is the role of the Local Education Authority, not school, to allocate places for FS2/ Reception.

Children start school (FS2/Reception) the September after their fourth birthday.

Each year the dates between which you can apply for a place for your child will slightly alter. You must check the Bury.gov website for up to date information. The closing date will be approximately the second week in the January before your child starts in FS2/ Reception the following September.

In the October before your child is due to start school in the following September, you should receive a letter from the LEA informing you of how to complete your child’s application. If you do not receive one, check the Bury.gov website or ring the Admissions team.

If your child attends St Mary’s FS1/ Nursery, we will send you a letter with the same information during September/ October to ensure that you do not miss out. We will also remind you about the admissions process at our Curriculum meeting in September. Reminders will be included in our Foundation Stage newsletters and individual letters given to parents who have not applied as the process continues.

Parents are asked to apply for a place online however if you do not have access to the internet please contact the admissions team for a paper copy. This must be returned to the admissions team, not school.

As we are a Catholic school you will also need to complete a supplementary form and bring it to school with your child’s birth and baptism certificates. Without this information we will not be able to process your child’s application. If we do not receive a baptism certificate for your child we will presume that your child is not a baptised Catholic and they will be treated as a non-Catholic when we apply our admissions criteria. Please note that if your child is already in FS1/ Nursery at St Mary’s you will still need to complete a supplementary form.

Please note that a place in our FS1/ Nursery does not entitle your child to a place in FS2/ Reception.

If you do not receive a letter in the October before your child starts in FS2/ Reception the following September, please contact the authority on 0161 253 6474 or log onto the Bury.gov.uk website and find the information on how to apply for a primary school place.

St Marys RC Supplementary Form For FS2 Reception Place

Policy

To view our admissions policy please click here.

Appeals

To view appeals information and the timetable please click here.