Proposal To Reduce the Published Admission Number

The Trust and the Leadership Team of Water Hall Primary School propose to reduce the Published Admission Number (PAN) for Reception from 45 to 30, to take effect from September 2024. 

The proposed change will help our school focus its learning for our youngest pupils. The Trust and staff are working hard to continue to improve the outcomes of all our pupils and feel strongly that the proposed reduction will benefit future outcomes for our children, whilst still enabling us to meet the demand of places.

We have a temporary PAN of 30 placed on our current Reception which has been supported by the Local Authority. We have engaged with the School Place Planning Team to understand the future projected pupil numbers within Milton Keynes and they have confirmed they will still meet their planned requirements once this proposed change has been made. 

There will be no other changes to the admission arrangements. The proposed change will not affect the current pupils or those who choose to accept an offer for a school place in September 2023. All current and future parents and any other interested stakeholders can make comments on this proposal, information on how you can do this is detailed at the end of this letter, under the section titled “How to make your views known”. 

Background 

The current Published Admission Number (PAN) for Water Hall Primary school is 45. Reducing the PAN will assist the Trust to provide stability in its long-term planning and allow the school to secure high-quality educational outcomes for our youngest pupils currently on our roll, while continuing to provide an appropriate number of places for future pupil numbers in line with demand in the Milton Keynes area. Although the Regulations and Code of Practice relating to school admissions no longer require an admissions authority to consult when maintaining or increasing a schools PAN, there remains a requirement to consult when the proposal is to reduce. Water Hall Primary School are seeking comments on the proposed change. 

Specific Proposal 

Water Hall Primary School along with our Trust proposes to reduce the Published Admission Number (PAN) from 45 to 30 with effect from September 2024. For pupils who already have a place at Water Hall Primary school in other year groups, there will be no change. We are also proposing to add into our admissions criteria that children who attend our Nursery provision will be considered under our oversubscription criteria, as criterion 4, after Looked After Children, Sibling, Place of Residence and before Distance.. 

It is important to consider the views of our parents and the wider community. If you would like to contribute to the consultation, please complete the Stakeholder Response Form available on our website. 

How to make your views known

The consultation will run from Monday 14th December – Friday 13th January 2023. All stakeholders are invited to submit comments in writing about the proposal to: 

PAN Consultation
Water Hall Primary school
Fern Grove
Bletchley
Milton Keynes
MK2 3QF

Or email to: office@waterhallprimary.co.uk (Subject heading: PAN Consultation)

For the duration of the consultation Water Hall will make the following documents available to view and download:

Stakeholders are deemed to be:

  • Parents and carers of children aged between 3 and 11 years of age
  • All other admission authorities within the relevant area
  • Milton Keynes Education Authority
  • Any adjoining neighbouring local authorities where the admission authority is the local authority
  • Other persons or groups in the local area who may have an interest in the proposed new arrangements i.e. other local nursery settings

As set out in the Schools Admission Code, we are entering into a 6-week statutory consultation. Following the consultation Trustees shall apply to the Regional Schools Commissioner to make a decision, on behalf of the Secretary of State.