Admissions Policy
All schools should have an Admissions Policy that is in line with agreed templates and has been approved by their patron.
- Schools who wish to review or amend their policy should request a copy of the updated Educate Together Admission Policy templates from admissionpolicies@educatetogether.ie. See more information on reviewing or amending your policy below.
Annual Admissions Notice
- The board of management must prepare and publish the school’s Annual Admissions Notice at least one week before a school can start its annual admissions process.
- Schools cannot accept applications before 1 October for the following school year.
- To help with annual admissions and the Department’s planning for school places, schools should open their admissions process as soon as possible after 1 October and coordinate with other schools in the area where appropriate.
- The annual admissions process must remain open for at least three weeks.
- The notice must be published on the school’s website for the duration of the school year and must also be available on request from the school.
- Annual Admissions Notices must contain certain information:
- The dates the process(es) will run for
- The number of places being made available
- A breakdown of the numbers of application received and offered in the previous year
- For more information on what must be included please see the Department of Education website and an Educate Together template annual admissions notice is available here.
Application forms
- To ensure efficient allocation of places in an area, schools may share data on applications for admissions with each other, the Department or the NCSE.
- As the Data Controllers schools should include a Data Privacy Statement on their application forms, sample text is provided on the Departments website here and below.
- To facilitate data sharing, application forms should capture at lease the PPSN, surname, first name, date of birth, and the category of the applicant per the school’s oversubscription criteria.
- The data should be recorded in tabular format (or a system that allows data to be extracted into a tabular format) to facilitate potential sharing see sample here.
- For schools with autism classes, it would be beneficial if they could include in their application form a question about sharing their details with the NCSE for the purposes of planning for the provision of special education placements.
Sample Data Privacy Statement
‘Section 66(6) of the Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018 allows for a list of students who have made applications for admission to be shared with a patron or another Board of Management, in order to facilitate the efficient admission of students. The data which may be provided for this purpose may include all or any of the following:
- the date on which an application for admission was received by the school;
- the date on which an offer of admission was made by the school;
- the date on which an offer of admission was accepted by an applicant;
- a student’s personal details including his or her name, address, date of birth and personal public service number (within the meaning of Section 262 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005).
- This data may be further shared with the Department of Education for further processing to facilitate the efficient admission of students. This is in accordance with the Minister for Education’s statutory function to ensure that there is made available to each person resident in the State a level and quality of education appropriate to meeting the needs and abilities of that person and to plan and co-ordinate the provision of education in recognised schools, having regard to the resources available.’
Offering places in autism classes
- Guidance on forming lists and offering places in classes for autistic students are available here.
- To allow for integration in a corresponding class or year group, students enrolled in an autism class can be counted twice for place allocation. However, the student should only be counted once for annual return figures to the Department.
- On the annual admissions notice schools should state the total number of places available in their intake group and other year groups, but when allocating places, they should in the first instance, hold back the number of places available in their autism class.
Admission FAQs
General advice on regular admissions queries are available here.
Updating Admissions Policies
Any review or amendments to a school’s admissions policy should follow the Department of Education guidelines (FAQs) available here and the Educate Together Patronage Manual.
- The board of management must consult with parents, staff and the patron when preparing a draft policy.
- An updated Educate Together template policy is available by emailing admissionpolicies@educatetogether.ie.
- Schools may wish to amend their policies if they no longer have waiting lists formed before February 2020 or to add something like a priority for students returning from a reading school or a provision for twins for example, or
- If a school has been sanctioned by the Minister to open a new or additional class(es) for students with autism, see additional information below.
- Schools should submit their amended draft policy in word format to admissionpolicies@educatetogether.ie for review, with an outline of the proposed changes.
Opening new or additional autism classes
If the Minister sanctions a new or additional autism class, schools must, before opening an admissions process, amend their admissions policy and follow the steps outlined in the Patronage Manual.
- Boards of management should consult with the school community and submit a draft policy in word format to admissionpolicies@educatetogether.ie for reviewed and approved.
- The annual admission notice should be published at least one week before the process opens and the process must remain open for at least three weeks.
- Consideration should be given to allow for integration – see the ‘offering places’ section above.
- Application forms should include a question about sharing their details with the NCSE for the purposes of planning for the provision of special education placements.
- More information on support available from the Department can be found here.
Other policy amendments
Should schools wish to introduce greater changes such as:
- a reduced catchment area within their planning area and/or
- proximity to the school within the planning are as measured by GPS and/or
- feeder primary schools within the school’s planning area that are within the reduced catchment area (all primary schools within the reduced catchment should be included).
They should, follow the steps outlined in section 2.2.3 Admissions Policy in the Educate Together Patronage Manual. A copy of the written report should be sent to admissionpolicies@educatetogether.ie for review and advice.
A reasonable amount of time should be allowed for this process to be completed. Initial requests for changes should be submitted to the national office by March 31st and completed reports by May 14th.
