A BOURNEMOUTH infants school has been forced to change its proposed admission policy after the government's Schools Adjudicator branded it unfair.

Queens Park Infant Academy planned to scrap its catchment area and published arrangements which appeared to exclude children born in August for admission in 2017.

Now the Office of the Schools Adjudicator has published a determination which says the catchment area must be reinstated and concludes "the use of birth dates in the oversubscription criteria is unfair."

The proposed admission arrangements, published on the school website, had three oversubscription criteria.

First priority was to be given to looked after children born between September 1 2012 and July 31 2013, second to children with siblings in the school born between the same dates and third to children prioritised by distance, also born between September and July.

The school will now have to revert to existing arrangements which means spaces are allocated to looked after children, followed by children with siblings in the school and who live in the catchment area. Catchment area children without siblings are the third group, followed by siblings outside the catchment area and children outside the catchment area with no siblings in the school. No dates are specified.

The school's catchment area was extended when the old Townsend Primary School closed in 2008 and still includes Townsend despite the opening of the new Jewell Academy.

Plans to scrap the catchment area and replace with a distance requirement were deemed to be unfair because the adjudicator said some families could find themselves with priority for any school.

Schools Adjudicator David Lennard Jones also criticised the school for failing to carry out proper consultation into its planned changes.

When contacted by the Daily Echo, head teacher Alison Smith confirmed the school will be going back to the old system and said the September to July dates published on the school's website and referred to in the determination "must be a mistake."

She added: "We have no intention of making different arrangements for August children."