Use this page to understand the procedure for the random allocation of school places for 2025 to 2026
When we use this
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There is more than one applicant ranked equally according to the school's published admissions policy, and there aren't enough places available to allocate all of the equally ranked applicants.
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Two or more unrelated applicants live at addresses which have the same distance measurement from the school (using the measurement formula which is set out in the school's admissions policy).
The people involved
There must be three people to carry out the random allocation procedure:
- Picker - This person must be independent of the school and of the Council's Admissions Team
- Admissions Officer - This should be a member of the Council's Admissions Team
- Scrutineer - This person must be independent of the school and of the Council's Admissions Team
This entire process is to be carried out in sight of the Scrutineer. This can include by secure video conferencing.
What happens
- The scrutineer oversees the entire process but does not get involved.
- The Admissions Officer assigns a number to each of the applicants who are ranked equally and records them on the cross reference sheet.
- The picker will use a random generator to rank the numbers
- The process is repeated until all equally ranked applicants have been ranked.
- The Admissions Officer records the ranking of the applicants on the Random Allocation Record sheet, and all three people sign and date to confirm the procedure has been carried out correctly. This can include electronic signatures
- The process can be repeated as many times as necessary, each time there are a number of applicants, and there is no other way to decide their ranking.
Each random allocation event is only applicable for the allocation of the currently available school place. On any waiting list the remaining applicants remain equally ranked and any further place is offered as the result of a further random exercise.
Children of a multiple birth
For children of a multiple birth, the order created by the random number generator, will be overridden to place all the children from the multiple birth together at the place where the highest child (from the multiple birth) is ranked.
The random number generator will then be used to rank the children from the multiple birth. This process will also be applied to brothers or sisters who are not from a multiple birth but are applying for a place in the same year group