Primary education information for parents - Glossary of terms for primary education

Academy

An Academy is a publicly funded independent school. Staff are employed by the Academy Trust, and the Trust or governing body are responsible for the admission arrangements.

Admissions Authority

The body that decides the order that children should be considered for places at the school. In the case of community and voluntary controlled schools it is the LA; in the case of academies and voluntary aided schools, it is the governing body.

Admission Number

This is the maximum number of pupils that a school is required to admit into each year group. The number is agreed as part of a school’s admission arrangements and is determined with regard to a Net Capacity Assessment (calculated on a Department of Education formula) based on the space available and use of resources. All schools must offer places up to the admission number if there is sufficient demand.

Admissions criteria

When a school has more applications than places, applications are matched against a list of criteria and ranked accordingly. These criteria are agreed by the LA for community and church controlled schools and by the governing body for church aided schools and academies.

Community School

A school which the LA maintains from public funds. It is managed locally by the headteacher and governors in collaboration with the LA.

Department for Education (DfE)

The government department with responsibility for children’s services, families, schools and 14–19 education.

Denominational

Relating to a particular religion.

EHCP (EHC plan)

Education, Health and Care Plans are personalised plans for children and young people with special educational needs that cover from birth to age 25.

They aim to ensure that all the support the young person needs from education, health and social care professionals is agreed in one place.

EHC plans replaced statements and learning disability assessments in September 2014. Children and young people who previously had one of these will be gradually moved over to an EHC plan.

Qualifying Measures

Qualifying measures means that in order to ensure that infant class sizes do not rise above 30, the school would have to provide additional teaching space and/or an additional teacher. The admissions policy for community and voluntary controlled schools, for which the Local Authority is the admissions authority, is designed to enable schools to organise in such a way as to ensure that no Foundation 2 or Key Stage 1 pupil is in a class of over 30