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St. Catherine's CE Primary School

St. Catherine's CE Primary School
In God's Love, Together We Flourish

Admissions

A message from our Chair of Governors

As you will see St. Catherine’s is a school which is filled with a buzz of happy activity and the warmth of positive relationships between pupils and adults. The children are taught a broad and balanced curriculum by wonderful teachers, and the academic standards are high; but St. Catherine’s is about so much more than this.  It is about giving everyone the opportunity to shine and be proud; it is about having the confidence to have a go at anything and the belief that you can succeed.  It is about tolerance and respect for the beliefs of others and pride in what others do well. It is about the fun, magic and laughter of school life and the making of all those memories that last into old age.

We believe that it is these things that make our children lively, confident and articulate and is why they move on to fulfilling lives built upon the Christian values and strong foundations laid in the school.

Our prospectus can be found here.

Admissions Policy

Our Admissions policies can be found here: 

 

 General Information about Reception Admissions

Children are usually admitted to school at the beginning of the school year (September) in which your child achieves his/her fifth birthday.

In the autumn term Bolton Local Authority (LA) will provide parents with access details to the online application form which will be distributed to their registered home address. The reception admissions booklet will be available to view or download from the Council’s website.

The Bolton LA application form will allow parents/carers to express at least 3 preferences in rank order and to state reasons for the preferences.

In addition to the LA Application Form, applicants for a Church place at the school, as defined in our Admissions Policy, should complete a Supplementary Information Form, available above or from the School Office, to which it needs to be returned within the timescales indicated on the form.

The Local Authority will forward relevant information from the application forms in February to St. Catherine’s where parents/carers have expressed a preference for us. The Admissions committee from St. Catherine’s then meets to rank all applications based on the different criteria in our admissions policy. This is then sent back to the LA for them to allocate places.

If your child is offered a place at St. Catherine’s during the summer term they will be invited to a series of activity afternoons in our Reception class to give them an opportunity to meet their new class teacher and the other children who will be in their class.  They will also be introduced to our Seeds and Gardeners scheme where an older child will act as your child’s ‘gardener’ and help settle them into school. This will aid your child’s smooth transition to starting full time education in September. For more details on Seeds and Gardeners please see the ‘pupils’ section of our website.

We also hold a welcome meeting for all parents of our new Reception class during the summer term during which gives parents an opportunity to talk to members of staff, discuss school procedures, purchase school uniform etc

Nursery Admissions

Parents may contact school at any time after their child is born to place their child’s name on the ‘interested list’ for a place in our Nursery.  Children are normally admitted in the September after they turn 3 years old and will stay in Nursery until they progress into Reception.  From time to time we may have availability in the spring and summer terms for children who turn 3 early. We are able to offer part time or full time places. More details are available from the school office.

Seeds and Gardeners

 

St. Catherine's has a ‘Seeds and Gardeners’ project, which we have run for many years, where a Reception child (the seed) will be linked to one of our Year 6 pupils (the gardeners).

New Reception children receive a personal letterfrom their gardener, along with a 'Catherine Bear' before they come in for their settling in sessions in June, prior to their September start.  The letter includes a photo of their gardener for them to put in their bedroom.

Gardeners will act as a buddy to their seed, helping them find their way around school in the first few days and weeks in September,  sit with them at lunchtimes until they feel more confident. Each seed will see their gardener in and around school quite often for the first term and in this way we hope to help nurture each child so that they blossom and shine. 

As time goes on, the seed will see their gardner less, although the friendship will still exist. Gardners and seeds walk to church together, read together, see each other around school and often exchange Christmas and birthday cards. 

The project is very successful and is spoken about with much affection by all those involved.