Year 7 Admissions Reception Admissions Nursery Admissions
Sixth Form Admissions In Year Admissions
William Hulme's Grammar School (WHGS) changed from being a selective school in the independent (fee-paying) sector to being a city academy funded by the government in September 2007. It is now the most popular school choice in Manchester for both the secondary and primary phases, and one of the most over-subscribed schools in the UK.
Part of the United Learning family of schools, our students continue to achieve excellent results. Places are offered to boys and girls of all abilities regardless of their background and strictly in accordance with our published admissions policy.
Year 7 Applications
The published admissions number (PAN) for Year 7 of the Secondary Phase is 120. This number applies to those applicants being admitted from outside the academy. Pupils in the academy’s Year 6 progress to Year 7 automatically. If fewer than 60 pupils intend to transfer from Year 6, the academy will admit over the admission number up to the overall size of the Year 7 group of 180.
September 2020
Local authorities communicated application decisions to parents/carers on 2 March 2020. WHGS posted a follow-up letter on this date to the parents/carers of all applicants. The letters should arrive from 4 March 2020 onwards. All places have been allocated and there are no more places available.
September 2021
Parents and carers who would like to apply to WHGS will make their child's application through their home local authority, by naming this school as one of their preferences on the Common Application Form (CAF).
In addition, please also complete a Supplementary Information Form (SIF) if:
- you would like your child to take the optional Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Aptitude Test; and/or
- your child has SEN or health issues we need to be aware of when making arrangements for them to take the non-verbal reasoning (NVR) assessment.
You do not need to complete the SIF if neither of these points apply to your child.
Click here to complete Year 7 Sept 2021 entry SIF
The application closing date is 2 November 2020.
Local authorities will communicate application decisions to parents/carers on 1 March 2021.
Open Evening
We strongly encourage applicants to attend our Open Evening which is scheduled for Thursday 1 October 2020, 4.30pm - 7.00pm.
Assessment Day
All applicants who name WHGS as one of their choices on the CAF submitted to their Local Authoirty will be called to attend our banding assessment on Friday 4 December 2020. The banding assessment consists of a Non-Verbal Reasoning (NVR) test. Invites to Assessment Day will be posted in late November 2020.
This is not an 11+ entrance exam, and there is no pass or fail mark. WHGS admits children of all abilities. See our Frequently Asked Questions and our prospectus for more information about the banding assessment.
The optional Modern Foreign Language Aptitude Test will also take place on the same day. If you wish for your child to take the MFL test, please indicate this on the SIF before 31 October 2020.
Please note that we do not provide any practice materials for either the NVR or MFL tests.
Applicants who do not take the NVR assessment will be considered after all applicants who have taken the assessment.
Reception Applications
September 2020
Applications closed on 15 January 2020. Local authorities will communicate application decisions to parents/carers on 16 April 2020. WHGS will post a follow-up letter on this date to the parents/carers of all applicants.
Please note that being in WHGS Nursery Class 2019-20 does not guarantee your child a place in WHGS Reception Class 2020-21.
September 2021
We will be offering 60 Reception places for September 2021 entry. Applications should be made through the child's home local authority, by naming this school as one of the preferences on the Common Application Form (CAF).
Applicants for Reception Class September 2021 entry should have a birth date between 1 September 2016 and 31 August 2017. Please see our Admissions Policy for information regarding the admission of children outside their normal age group.
The application closing date is 15 January 2021.
Please note that being in WHGS Nursery Class 2020-21 does not guarantee your child a place in WHGS Reception Class 2021-22.
Local authorities will communicate application decisions to parents/carers on 16 April 2021.
Nursery Applications
September 2020
Applications closed on 15 January 2020. WHGS communicated application decisions to parents/carers on 16 March 2020.
Click the link below if you wish to sumbit a late application (this will place your child on our waiting list):
Download Nursery Class Sept 2020 application form
September 2021
Applications must be made direct to the school.
Click here to complete Nursery Sept 2021 entry application form
Applicants for Nursery Class September 2021 entry should have a birth date between 1 September 2017 and 31 August 2018.
The application closing date is 15 January 2021. Offers of places will be made by the school in March 2021.
Reception and Nursery Open Afternoons
You can visit between 1.30 pm - 2.30 pm on the following dates:
To book a space please email ppreception@whgs-academy.org or telephone the school, at least 24 hours before the event, stating: your name and contact number, and your child's name and date of birth.
Sixth Form
Click here for more info about our Sixth Form
Twitter: @WHGSSixthForm
We offer students a wide range of subjects taught by highly-skilled specialists, excellent pastoral support, careers advice and facilities and enrichment opportunities, including:
- A dedicated Sixth Form Centre with excellent study facilities
- Sixth Form café and common room
- Small class sizes
- Private study room
- Sixth Form laptops available from the Flexible Learning Space
- Individual support and mentoring, both academic and personal
- Extensive range of co-curricular activities including volunteering, DofE, MUN, Bar Mock Trial, sport
- Specialist support for entry to Oxbridge, Law, Medicine and Dentistry
Destinations of this year’s Y13 leavers include the universities of: Manchester, Leeds, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, amongst others. We have students going on to study subjects such as: Law, Management, Mechanical Engineering, Psychology, Maths, Medicine, Optometry and many more.
We hope that you will take the opportunity to come and visit us and choose William Hulme’s as the place to continue your path to academic success.
In-Year applications to any other year group outside the normal admissions round
At the present time there are no vacancies in any year group at this school.
If you are considering moving your child from their current school to this or any other Manchester school, you must contact Manchester City Council School Admissions on school.admissions@manchester.gov.uk or 0161 245 7166. They will be able to advise you about vacancies in other schools and assist you in making an In-Year application. More information can be found on the council's website: https://www.manchester.gov.uk/admissions.
If you make an In-Year application to this school this will add your child's name to our waiting list. We will only allocate a place from the waiting list if a child leaves the school in that year group, creating a vacancy. Places are allocated from the waiting list according to our admissions criteria and not by the length of time spent on the list.
Enquiries about the waiting list
We appreciate that many parents are extremely anxious to get their child into this school. If a place for a child does become available we will always contact the parent immediately by phone and/or letter to offer the place. If you have not heard from us, it is because your child has not been offered a place.
We would ask your co-operation in not telephoning the school to ask about the waiting list because of the huge volume of calls this generates which prevents us from doing other admissions work. If you would like to make an enquiry about your child's position on the waiting list, please email admissions@whgs-academy.org with the following information:
- Your child's full name
- Your child's date of birth
- The school year your child is currently in
- The first line of your address
We will respond as soon as we can. Thank you for helping us to provide a good service for all our applicants.
These are the admissions criteria we use when allocating our school places in a simplified format to make it easy for parents/carers to quickly understand. It is important to see our full admissions policy as well which gives you more detail about these criteria - please see our Admissions Policy below.
Children who have an Education and Health Care Plan (in which our school has been named) are allocated places before we apply our admissions criteria in order.
- Children who are Looked After (i.e. in care) or who have been Previously Looked After by a Local Authority
- 10% of available places (for Year 7 only) are allocated to the children with the highest scores in our Modern Language Aptitude Test
- Children with exceptional medical or social circumstances
- Children who have an older brother or sister on the roll on the date of admission (but not in the sixth form)
- The remaining places are offered on a 50% Distance and 50% Random basis (except for Primary Phase and Nursery which does not use Random)
For Year 7 only we use a banding assessment to put all applicants into 5 ability groups of equal size so that we can make sure our intake is comprehensive i.e. that we have the same proportion of children of every ability. We do not select just the brightest applicants. There is no pass/fail mark for our banding assessment.
After we have divided all the applicants into 5 equal bands, we then apply the admissions criteria shown above to each band. For example if we have 1000 applicants, each band would have 200 children in it. We would then apply the criteria to decide which of the 200 children in each band would be allocated places. We will offer exactly the same proportion of places available to each band. For example, if we have 120 places available, we would offer 24 places in each band.
Admissions Policy for 2019
The Local Governing Body has determined that this shall be our Admissions Policy for entry to school year 2019-20:
WHGS determined admissions policy 2019
Admissions Policy for 2020
The Local Governing Body has determined that this shall be our Admissions Policy for entry to school year 2020-21:
WHGS determined admissions policy 2020
Admissions Policy for 2021
The Local Governing Body has determined that this shall be our Admissions Policy for entry to school year 2021-22:
WHGS determined admissions policy 2021
Please note: due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic it is very likely that appeal hearings will not be held in-person this year. They may be conducted on the basis of the paper submissions, or by video or telephone conferencing. The Clerks will be in touch with all appellants in due course to advise on how the appeals will proceed.
Parents have the right to appeal to an independent panel against the decision of the school not to offer their child a place. In the normal admissions round, most appeals are heard during the summer term in time for the new academic year. Appeals should be sent to the Clerk via the school. Parents are strongly advised to read the Guidance Notes before preparing their appeal.
NOTE: WHILE THESE ARRANGEMENTS GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO APPEAL AGAINST DECISIONS OF NON-ADMISSION, THE SCHOOL STANDARDS & FRAMEWORK ACT 1998 DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO A PLACE AT A PARTICULAR SCHOOL. EVEN IF YOU ARE APPEALING FOR A PLACE AT YOUR PREFERRED SCHOOL YOU SHOULD MAKE ARRANGEMENTS WITH ANOTHER SCHOOL IN CASE YOUR APPEAL IS UNSUCCESSFUL.
Appeals for Primary and Secondary places for September 2020 entry
The timetable for appeals for Summer 2020 is as follows:
Year 7
Completed forms for Year 7 appeals must be received at the school no later than 4.00pm on Tuesday 31 March 2020.
Stage 1 of Year 7 appeals for September 2020 will be heard as a group at the school on Thursday 14 May 2020. All appellants for Year 7 will be invited to attend on that date.
Stage 2 of the appeals will be heard in private over the course of the following week(s).
Reception Class
Completed appeals forms for Reception Class must be received at the school no later than 4.00pm on Monday 18 May 2020.
Stage 1 of Primary (Reception) appeals for September 2020 will be heard as a group on the morning of Monday 15 June 2020. All appellants for Reception Class will be invited to attend on that morning.
Stage 2 of the Reception appeals will be heard in private over the course of the following week(s).
In Year Appeals
Parents who wish to appeal for an In Year place should submit their appeal form, together with all the supporting documents they wish the panel to consider. Appeals should be sent to the Clerk to Appeals c/o the school. Any In Year appeals will be heard by the independent panel within 30 school days of their receipt.
Complaints about appeal procedure
If an appellant is considering making a complaint about the school's handling of their appeal, they should refer in the first instance to the government's guidance about making an online complaint and the grounds for complaint which the government is allowed to consider.
Download factsheet
What is the school's catchment area?
The school does not have a catchment area as such. We do not draw a circle on a map and allocate only to those inside the circle. Part of our admissions policy is 'distance from school' i.e. we would allocate a number of places to those children living nearest to the school gate. The other part of our admissions policy for secondary applicants is 'random' allocation. Thus, you could live quite far from the school, or even in a neighbouring Local Authority, and your child would still have a chance of being allocated one of these places. To fully understand how 'distance' and 'random' fits into our policy, see the school prospectus.
I live very near the school - will I get a place for my child?
How near you would need to live to be allocated a 'distance' place would depend upon where other applicants live and how many 'distance' places are available for allocation. On past experience, 'distance' places do tend to go to children living within 500 - 700 metres of school, but this does vary from year to year.
How do you decide who to give places to?
The school applies its published admission policy very strictly. There is no discretion in this. For example, we do not consider such things as convenience of transport to school - that is not a part of our policy. See our admission policy on our website or in our prospectus.
What is the entrance exam and where can I buy practice papers?
There is no entrance exam for this school, i.e. we do not ask children to do an 11+ with a pass or fail mark. We do invite all the Year 7 applicants in to do a non-verbal reasoning assessment in December, but this is purely for banding purposes, so that we can make sure we take children of all abilities in equal proportions. We do not only allocate places to 'bright' children. We do not provide practice papers and there is no need to tutor or coach children for our test.
What if my child does not pass the Year 7 exam?
No children pass or fail this assessment test - we consider all applicants equally in accordance with our published policy. The assessment will place each applicant into one of five ability bands of equal size.
Which language does my child have to speak to do the MFL aptitude test?
Year 7 applicants who choose the option of taking the MFL aptitude test do not need to know any specific language. The test is in a made-up language of which no candidate will have prior knowledge so it is a level playing field for all. We are testing the aptitude for using a language not knowledge of a specific language. We allocate 10% of Year 7 places to the students who achieve the top scores in this test.
How do I put my child on the waiting list?
Year 7, Reception and Nursery applicants will be retained on our waiting list for the first term of the academic year. To remain on the list after that time, and to enter the list for any other year, all applicants are required to go through Manchester School Admissions Co-ordinated Admissions scheme. Waiting list applicants should contact the School Admissions team to make an In Year application, which must be endorsed by the child's current school. If your child does not have a school, they will be able to help you find a school which has a place for your child. Very few applicants are ever allocated a place from our waiting list due to the very low level of pupil movement in this school - i.e. not many children leave us to vacate a place for another child.