THE schools trust which will run the new Lyde Green Community School is consulting on its catchment area.
The new 900-place secondary school is due to open in Honeysuckle Road in September 2026, and applications will open in autumn 2025.
Olympus Academy Trust has drawn up a proposed ‘area of prime responsibility’ for the school, also known as a catchment area: applications from children living there are given priority over those living further afield if the school is oversubscribed.
For Lyde Green Community School, the area will be tightly drawn around Lyde Green itself.
Its boundaries are: the A4174 Avon Ring Road between the Dramway and Westerleigh Road roundabouts; Westerleigh Road between the ring road and the M4; the M4 between Westerleigh Road and the Bristol & Bath Railway Path, by the Westerleigh oil depot; the railway path/Dramway from the M4 to the Dramway roundabout junction of the A4174 and Shortwood Road.
Families living outside the area will also be able to apply for the school, which will have an intake of 180 Year 7 pupils – equivalent to six classes of 30 children – each year.
Under the plans, if the school is over-subscribed priority will be given first to children in care, then to children in the catchment area.
Other applications will be “decided by geography”, with priority given to children who live closest to the school but outside the catchment area.
The trust says: “Distances from home to school are measured in a direct line between the address point of the child’s home and a central point within the main school building using the local authority’s computerised mapping system.”
If the priority for remaining places can’t be resolved using distance, there will be a “random lottery” drawn in front of an independent witness.
The trust is also consulting on plans to change admissions criteria for sibling priority for all of its schools, to allow the brothers and sisters of an older child who has already been admitted to a school through an education, health and care plan (EHCP) priority for places, regardless of their home address.
It says these children currently have a “very low” chance of attending the same school as their siblings – but increasing their priority “could reduce the number of places available for other children living locally”.
Building work on Lyde Green Community School and a neighbouring 420-place primary school, which will be run by Castle School Education Trust, started in April after years of delays.
The consultation on admissions is open until January 20 and can be found online at www.olympustrust.co.uk/2026-Consultation.