Consultation to lower the school age

The Governing Body of St Joseph's Catholic Primary School is seeking conversion to academy status within the Xavier Catholic Education Trust.

As part of that process, the status of our School Nursery will need to change.  Our Nursery is currently provided for under Section 27 of the Education Act, allowing Governing Bodies of maintained schools to establish community provision, including nurseries.

Once St Joseph's becomes an academy, we will no longer be a maintained school and therefore we cannot continue to run our Nursery under Section 27 of the Education Act.

Instead, the school can continue to run its own Nursery provision by lowering the school age.  We are currently a 4 - 11 school and this consultation is proposing changing that to 2 - 11 years.  This is a decision that the Governing Body is able to take, after consultation.  

Lowering the School's age range to 2 - 11 years would mean that we could continue to run our popular Nursery after we have converted to become an academy in the Xavier CET.  

Lowering the School's age range would not affect school admissions in any way: parents would still need to apply for a Nursery place in the normal way, and would still need to apply for a Reception place in the normal way.  Attending the School's Nursery would not offer any advantage in securing admission to Reception.  

Full details of the consultation are attached.

You can submit your response here:

A virtual meeting will be held at 7pm on Monday 22nd May if you would like to discuss the consultation further.  Please email head@stjosephsguildford.com for the meeting link.