BLUE GUM’S 2024 ENROLMENT POLICY

As an inclusive, secular, co-educational school, and as a school committed to social justice, Blue Gum Community School is open to all students, with or without religious affiliation, students with disabilities, indigenous students etc.

Places are offered giving preference to the following priorities:

  • Continuing families committed to Blue Gum’s unique educational approach through to Year 10. (including students transitioning from Blue Gum’s Playgroups to Blue Gum’s Preschool, and from Blue Gum’s Preschool to Blue Gum’s Kindergarten.)
  • Siblings of students who are enrolled at Blue Gum for the full 2024 school year.

Responsibility and authority for enrolments rest with the School Principal, who will ensure that an Admissions Register or Data Base is maintained for each and every student enrolled. Their names, contact details, and the admission and departure details provided will be recorded.

It is a condition of enrolment at Blue Gum, that once a family formally enrols a student for a school year, then the family agrees to pay all fees / extras related to that booking, up to the end of that year (whether or not the student attends). A non-refundable Fees Deposit is charged to secure an enrolment place. This Fees Deposit (less an enrolment administration charge of $55) is credited against future fees for the place being secured, or refunded if no place is available. The Deposit is not refunded if a family fails to take up the enrolment place it secures. The Deposit cannot be used to pay any other fees / extras the family owes. An enrolment is not finalised until the full Deposit is paid and the Enrolment Form is signed by all parties (including the school). School fees must be paid at least two weeks in advance; the school may cancel an enrolment for non-payment of fees. A family may cancel an enrolment, by giving Blue Gum ten (10) weeks’ written notice. If written notice is not given, each Term’s fees are payable.

If the school cannot make ‘reasonable adjustment’ to meet the ongoing needs of a student, or the student or their family act in ways that make the educational program or the school’s operations unworkable, then the School Principal may suspend or cancel an enrolment. Such action will comply with the ACT’s Education Act 2004. Reasonable efforts will be made to negotiate an outcome that works in the student’s best interests and in the interests of other members of the school community. However, the School Principal cannot negotiate away the school’s obligations and duty of care to all members of the school community. Families dissatisfied with the School Principal’s decision may express full details of their concerns in writing to the School Board and request that the decision to suspend / cancel an enrolment be reviewed.