School admissions - any advice?

[greatestshowpun]

I'm sure this has been done to death over the years but... any advice?

We're moving from Scotland to England with 3 school age children next summer. We can't move before because the eldest has her nationals (GCSE equivalents) in May. We know where we'll be going (based on work and relative closeness to ageing parents) and we know what school we want them to go to, chosen because of the A'levels offered. The closing date for entrance is the beginning of February.

However, my youngest DC will be starting secondary next September and his application has to be in at the end of the month.

I know there's a lot of movement in the primary to secondary allocation but is there any way of applying now, contacting the school, the council or am I being ridiculous? I want all 3 at the same school.

Disclaimer - this will be the third change of school in as many years for them so I want to get it right and not start somewhere and move them again 6 months later.

Contact the council. We applied for secondary from overseas and just wrote that we were planning to move into catchment. Got given a place. Obviously it’s an undersubscribed school with a huge intake so wouldn’t happen everywhere but worth contacting the council and asking their advice. I found ours v helpful as I was also applying for a reception place.

Generally - no, you need to have an address to apply.
Is the school over subscribed every year? Some schools may have lots of spare places so you may have no trouble getting in once you have moved, other schools will be highly competitive for places and so unless you live close to the school when applying in the normal round of admissions you have no hope

You can apply from current address and you may get a place - it will depend on their admission criteria and how under/oversubscribed they are.

If undersubscribed and there are places then chances of your son being offered are high. But if it is very popular and tiebreaker is distance (for example) and last few years distance was 0.2miles then chances are vanishingly small.

Once you move obviously your new address will kick in and if close enough you may move up to top of waiting list for preferred school plus you have the option of appealing.

Oh zelba that has given me hope, thank you! Our last English council were really tricky on school admissions - as were all of the Scottish school receptionists I spoke to - and I expected similar.

You can apply from where you are but as most schools are done on distance you will be low down the list until you actually are due there then you will go up the list. I doubt it will make much difference if you apply now or when you move.

Our council were super helpful and actually I know they admitted our daughter above another child out of catchment (i know because this child was then offered a waiting list place) so they had responded to the info we gave about moving to the area.