School Place in different local authority

[Ahmawa]

How does this actually work?

Don't I need to pay council tax in the authority I send my child to?

I did not receive any of my preferences and I have found out that the LA near us has schools that have places available.

[prh47bridge]

No, you do not need to pay council tax in the LA to which you send your child. Schools are not funded from council tax. You simply apply to your local authority for a place at the school you want even though it is in another LA. If they have places available you will be offered a place.

[Ahmawa]

I wish I had known that when I applied originally. It wasn't made clear.

[purpleme12]

When we applied they sent a little booklet through which explained about that amongst other things

[prh47bridge]

You can still apply now for a school in the neighbouring LA if you want.

[RainbowFairiesHaveNoPlot]

You just apply through the LA as normal (I found schools a bit more disinterested in replying to messages asking about places/admissions across the border but they shouldn't be) and it all gets funded as normal. Mine are in-school within our home LEA but did their nursery year in the next LEA across (we're pretty much ON the boundary so fairly common) and no issues at all.

[spanieleyes]

We had someone apply for a place from America! We had a vacancy so they were given the place ( although we did expect them to start within 2 weeks!) The next county would have been a doddle!

[Ahmawa]

The adjacent LEA has a different application form so I asked my LA would you need any further details from me and they said we just send your application to them.

Is it emailed to them or is there a form they complete?

They said now they assess these changes on a weekly basis.

Currently the school in the adjacent LEA has become full so I will just be added to the waiting list?

[prh47bridge]

You are seriously overthinking this. Send your application to your LA and they will handle the rest. You don't need to worry about how it happens. It will happen.

If the school you want is full when you apply you will be added to the waiting list. If there are other people on the waiting list your position will be decided by the school's admission criteria. You won't be put at the back of the list just because you are in a different LA.