Fair Banding

Fair Banding

At Brompton Academy we operate a ‘Fair Banding’ admissions process to ensure we have a balanced proportion of students from across the whole ability range – a comprehensive intake. Students who wish to apply for a place at Brompton Academy must take a Fair Banding test to be considered for admission to the Academy and this will be required if their parents/carers intend to put Brompton Academy on the common admissions form – outlined below (CAF).

Registration for the 2023 Fair Banding Test (Year 7 for September 2025) closes on Friday 21st September 2024.

This test is usually a cognitive ability test(s) – it is not a pass or fail test. Students are asked to take it and their scores on the test are then used to place them in an ability band. Students taking the test are placed in one of five ability bands representative of the national ability range. Please see the graph below for information regarding the number of student places in each ability band.

These banding arrangements are an effective practice in schools providing fair oversubscription criteria, provided arrangements are fair objective and not used as a means of unlawfully admitting a disproportionate number of high ability children.

If places in a band are not filled or become vacant, for example, because parents/carers accept offers of places at other schools, and no applicants in those bands remain without a place, they must be evenly filled by children falling into the next nearest bands (i.e. the bands on either side, or below or above, if the first child is from the band above then the next must be from the one below). This allocation is carried out randomly by the Local Authority.

Banding Children in Care or Children with an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP)

Children in Care and children with an EHCP where the Academy is named, who apply in the normal admissions round, must be included in any banding arrangements and given top priority within each band.