Admissions Criteria – Nursery (Pre-School)

A timetable of pre-school admissions procedures setting out the dates by which an application is to be submitted is available at www.eani.org.uk/admissions under ‘Pre-School Admissions’.  During the admissions procedure when applying the criteria punctual applications will be considered before late applications are considered.

The application procedure opens on 9 January 2024 at 12noon (GMT) and an application submitted by the closing date of

26 January 2024 at 12noon (GMT) will be treated as a punctual application.  An application received after 12noon (GMT) on 26 January 2024 will be treated as a late application.

As the pre-school admissions procedure is in two stages the timetable also specifies the relevant dates at Stage 2 which will determine if an application is to be considered as punctual or late.

Statutory Criteria

• Children from socially disadvantaged circumstances in their final pre-school year who were born:
  • on or between 2 July 2020 and 1 July 2021 (inclusive) and whose parents have not exercised their right to defer their

child’s entry to primary school; or,

• on or between 1 April 2020 and 1 July 2020 (inclusive) or were due to be born on or between those dates but were born earlier; and,
  • have not attended or are not currently attending a funded pre-school setting under the Pre-School Education Programme as a target aged child; and,
  • that child’s parent has completed a request to defer their child starting P1 until September

Note: Children from ‘socially disadvantaged circumstances’ means a child whose parent has an entitlement to (i) Income Support, or (ii) Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, or (iii) Income related Employment and Support Allowance, or (iv) Universal Credit. When parents apply for places for their child on this basis they must provide Benefit Verification to confirm that they have an entitlement. The application procedure for Pre-School will outline how Benefit Verification can be submitted.

• Children not from socially disadvantaged circumstances (as defined above) who are in their final pre-school year (as defined by Criterion 1).

Sub-criteria

In the event of oversubscription children will be admitted in order of the following sub-criteria:

• Children who are currently attending Movilla Playgroup and Nursery in a fee paying
• Children whose siblings previously attended Movilla Playgroup and
• Children who are the first child of the family eligible to
• Children who are deemed to need support where evidence is provided from the relevant professional body. The merits of each individual case will be determined with reference to supporting evidence from those professionals involved with the child which should be submitted at the time of

• The geographical location of the child’s home address relative to the setting as measured by Google Maps Walking distance. Child closest in distance from the setting will be admitted

If applicants are still ranked the same after application of the above criteria, then selection for places will be made on the basis of the initial letter of the surname appearing on the birth certificate, with the application being selected in the order set out below. The order was selected by the randomised selection of letters:

G A H D I Q L Y V K Z T C B M E U J N O P S W R X F

In the event of two identical surnames the alphabetical order of the initials of the forenames as appearing on the birth certificate will be used.

Non-Statutory Criteria

Note: Applications falling under Criterion 3 are processed only during Stage 2 of the admissions process, after final pre- school year (Statutory Criteria 1 and 2) applications.

3. Children who were born:
   • on or between 1 April 2020 – 1 July 2020 (inclusive), or were due to be born on or between those dates but were born earlier; and,
     • and have attended or are currently attending a funded pre-school setting under the Pre-School Education Programme as a target aged (not penultimate aged) child; and,
     • that child’s parent has completed a request to defer their child starting

Tie Breaker – Non-Statutory Criterion 3

Children within Criterion 3 will be selected in Chronological Order of Age – eldest child first. In the event of two or more children having the same DOB the above random selection of letters will be used.

Applications after 1 September 2024

Criteria as above.

Duty to Verify

The Management/Proprietors reserve the right to require such supplementary evidence as it may determine to support or verify information on any application form.

If the requested evidence is not provided to the Management/Proprietors by the deadline given, this will result in the withdrawal of an offer of a place. Similarly, if information is supplied which appears to be false or misleading in any material way, the offer of a place will be withdrawn.

Birth certificates continue to be required for all applicants and should also be provided directly to the first preference provider.

Waiting List Policy

Should a vacancy arise after 11 June 2024, all applications for admission to the playgroup that were initially refused, new applications, late applications and applications where new information has been provided will be treated equally and the published criteria applied. The waiting list will be in place until the end of the academic year.

The playgroup will contact you in writing if your child gains a place in the playgroup by this method. Your child’s names will beautomatically added to the list. Please contact the playgroup if you wish for your child’s name to be removed from the list.