The schools adjudicator has ruled that making Meadow Vale a feeder school is unfair to catchment families. The trust has a month to rewrite its Year 7 rules.
King’s Academy Binfield has been told to rewrite its Year 7 admission rules for September 2027. The schools adjudicator ruled on 30 October that giving priority to children from King’s Academy Meadow Vale Primary School is unfair to families who live in the school’s catchment area.
The decision is binding. King’s Group Academies, the trust that runs the school, must change the rules “as soon as possible and within one month at most”. The adjudicator, Dr Bryan Slater, set that shorter deadline so that Bracknell Forest Council can allocate places knowing the final rules. His determination was published on GOV.UK.
Applications for September 2027 closed on 31 October. Offers go out on 1 March 2027, according to the council’s key dates page.
What the trust changed
For 2024, 2025 and 2026 the school had one named feeder school, King’s Academy Oakwood. For 2027 the trust added a second, King’s Academy Meadow Vale. All three schools belong to the same trust.
Children at a feeder school rank above siblings, staff children and children living in the catchment area. The order for Year 7 places in the 2027 rules is:
- looked after and previously looked after children
- children with exceptional medical or social needs
- children at King’s Academy Oakwood or King’s Academy Meadow Vale
- brothers and sisters of pupils at the school
- children of staff
- children living in the catchment area
- everyone else
Children with an education, health and care plan naming the school are admitted first. The trust consulted from 6 October to 24 November 2025, and its board confirmed the rules on 5 February 2026.
Who objected
Fifty-nine people and organisations objected, all between 1 and 15 May 2026. They were:
- parents, most of them
- three members of the public
- Bracknell Forest Council
- the Oxford Diocesan Board of Education
- a representative of two schools
- a local councillor
- the area’s MP
Why the adjudicator found it unfair
Meadow Vale is a big primary school, with 85 children in Year 6 this September. The council found that only 38 of them live in King’s Academy Binfield’s catchment area. At Binfield Church of England Primary School, half a mile from the academy, 52 of 63 Year 6 children do.
Under the 2027 rules, every Meadow Vale child would rank above the Binfield children who live in the catchment. The adjudicator said the evidence showed that objectors’ fears about local children being displaced, “especially those from Binfield”, were “a reality”.
The council reran the real applications from 2025 and 2026 using the 2027 rules. These were the results:
- 2025: 22 of the 36 catchment families who put the school first would have been refused.
- 2026: 39 of 52 would have been refused. The council’s own summary gave 33; the adjudicator took 39 from its source data.
For 2027 itself, the council estimated that 20 to 35 children living in the catchment area could miss out. Those children would most likely be sent to Garth Hill College, 1.5 miles away, or Brackenhale School, 2.7 miles away. Both are to the south east, so children from Binfield would pass close to King’s Academy Binfield every day on the way. The adjudicator said that adds “a degree of unfairness”.
He also noted that many Meadow Vale children already get places by living nearby. In September 2026, 44 of the 83 children leaving Meadow Vale went to King’s Academy Binfield. He concluded the disadvantage to catchment children outweighed the gain to Meadow Vale children who live outside it.
What the adjudicator did not uphold
The ruling went the trust’s way on most other points. The adjudicator found:
- Naming Meadow Vale was reasonable in principle. The schools are close, in the same trust and have a history of pupils moving between them. The problem was the effect on catchment families, not the choice of school.
- No evidence of religious discrimination. Some objectors argued the change disadvantaged children from Church of England primary schools.
- The consultation was largely sound. The one flaw was that early years providers were not asked to pass it on to parents of very young children.
- The council’s argument under the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 fell outside his powers. That law was also not in force when the rules were set.
He also told the trust to clarify two passages: whether a younger sibling at the school counts for an older child’s Year 7 place, and how the tie-break on distance works. The trust said it was willing to amend both.
What the trust says
The trust told the adjudicator that naming Meadow Vale reflects “a unique relationship” between its schools and a shared ethos. It said the change was “transparent, made on reasonable grounds, and fair”.
The school’s admissions page still sets out the 2027 rules as decided in February. It says the catchment “remains a fundamental pillar” of the criteria. It also says the trust would consider consulting on raising the intake from 210 to 240 “if evidence in the future suggests that local children are at risk of losing places”. The adjudicator’s figures give the Year 7 intake for external applicants as 180, with 30 more children moving up from the school’s own primary classes.
What it means for you
- If you applied for September 2027, you do not need to reapply. Places are allocated by the council against whatever rules the trust finally adopts.
- Moving into or within the borough? The council’s deadline for late movers and address changes on on-time applications is 18 November.
- Offers arrive on 1 March 2027. You can appeal if you are refused a place.
- Check the revised rules on the school’s admissions page once the trust publishes them, by about the end of November.
King’s Academy Binfield is an all-through school for ages 3 to 19 that opened in 2018. Ofsted rated it good in November 2022. Parents named it 483 times as a Year 7 preference in 2026, 185 of them as their first choice.
For the council’s wider plans for secondary places, see our report on the Bracknell school places strategy and the catchment areas consultation. Term dates for every school are on our school term dates page.
Have your say