Moving cities summer time and starting primary school in September

[JoannaAsia]

Hi all!
I’m here to hopefully find some answers.
My partner and I are in the process of selling our flat near London. We want to buy a house but in our area is crazy expensive so we want to relocate to Midlands or North. We found house that we would like to buy in Rugby, near Coventry, however our solicitor told us it’s better to wait and see because he is not happy with a rentcharge that the house has. so now we are waiting for the solicited tell us what to do with the house.

So we have started thinking about Plan B and we also want to move to Nottingham (house prices are so good there!) but it is too far so the bank would not give us mortgage because we would not have a job straightaway. We need to rent first.

My problem is that my four-year-old daughter is going to start school in September but because we are not sure where we gonna leave just yet I don’t know what to do about that.

does anyone know if I can apply for school right before it starts? Let’s say in August sometime and if anyone had a similar situation, what did you do?

send some help please🙈

Whenever you apply now, the application will be a late one. You have to make your main round application (yrR / starting Junior / Starting Middle school / yr7) through the LA where you live, so if you knew where you were moving to, you could apply for schools there through your current LA. If a school you list has a place for September , you will be offered one, bit if not, you can go on waiting lists and in the meantime, your LA will find you a place at the school nearest to your current address - useful if you don't manage to move at all before the start of term.

However, as it still seems to be a it up in the air as to where you will actually be, it would be sensible to wait until you have decided and can provide proof of address acceptable to the new LA and apply then. By which time, you may be looking at a mid-year application, which may have to go to the individual school(s) rather than on a CA via the LA (you need to check this with the area you are actually moving to).

Have you made an on-time (or even a late) application for a Reception place where you live currently?

The tl:dr is that you can apply for a school place at any time. However, there may at times be some delay in the application being processed, as this is based on 'school days'.

You can apply for any school from where you are now, and if they have a space, you will be given it. Depending on the pressure for places where you are going, you may find local schools have places in reception for September.

If they don't, once you have an address, the local LA will have a responsibility to find you a place, but it may not be in a school of your choice.

So yes, you can apply when you move, and you will get a space somewhere; if you move in august you may have to wait until schools re open for allocation though.

We started at a new school 2 weeks after applying when we did a move.
Forget about schools for now. Work out which location you are going for. Move. Then apply for a school place - probably by mid year transfer.

You are probably cutting it fine to buy a house and be moved in for 1 September anyway.

Yes, she has her school place in the area we leave now because I’ve applied for it back in November but we’ve decided to move this year March.
thank you for your advice and I will hopefully make it all work on time 🙏🏼