Tours for next year’s Reception Class are available in November. Please contact the school office for more information.

Each year we admit 15 children to our Reception Class. They spend several afternoons visiting us in the Summer Term, before they are admitted in September. Children attending the Village Pre-School Group also visit us on a regular basis for our weekly Team Assembly and the transition to our School is therefore very smooth.

We invite parents of new entrants into school during the second half of the Summer Term prior to admission to meet their child’s teacher, to see the school at work and to discuss arrangements for the new school year. At this meeting parents will be given copies of the school’s Home-School Agreement, which explains the aims and values of the school and sets out the responsibilities of the school, of the parents and of the children. We recognise that your child starting school can be an uncertain time for parents and are happy to answer any concerns by telephone or e-mail.

Parents are required to complete an online application Form, which is available on the Essex County Council website: https://www.essex.gov.uk/topic/admissions

Sometimes there are vacancies in other year groups. Please telephone the school (01279 734210) to enquire or to make an appointment to look round. You will be made very welcome.

Free School Transport

The Governing Body has recently been made aware that some parents have been given misleading advice about Free School Transport from Lower Sheering. This has been investigated and we believe that, using Essex County Council’s criteria of “available walking route”, all pupils from Lower Sheering are entitled to free school transport regardless of income. The legal definition of an “available route” is a “route along which a child, accompanied as necessary, can walk and walk with reasonable safety to school”. ECC has previously assessed Back Lane as being unsuitable so if parents are now advised that they do not qualify please ask ECC to explain their reasoning in order that the Governing Body can pursue the matter further.