Getting child into primary school when I don’t live in the local area (yet)

[Asf1993]

Hello, I will be moving to a new area next year and I am concerned about how this will impact applying for my child’s primary school place.

If I haven’t moved to the new area before the deadline to apply for a primary school place, how do I apply for a school place in this area?

You probably can't. Will either need to get your skates on to meet the deadline, or take the chance on being top of the reserve list of your preferred school once you've moved, if / when a place comes up.
Possibly if you've got a rental control or have exchanged purchasing contracts, the local authority may accept an application then, but you will have to check. You might need to be in residence.

You can apply to any state primary school in the country and if they are undersubscribed you will get a place.

I've always wondered what happens if you move and the new school is full. This happened to a friend locally - they were told all local primaries were full so she had to drive her children 20 miles in the wrong direction for her work to get them to school for over a year.
But say you move a 2 hour drive from your old place to a rural village. School full. What happens then - especially if you can't drive and can't get the child to a school that could be a long way away? Does the child just stay at home until a place frees up?

Honestly i would try and move now before next years deadline in 11 months. applying for primary schools is stressful enough when you can meet the deadline, then having to wait 3 months to find out which school you get. Otherwise you'll probably get no choice and have to take whichever school has spaces.

In that case you could go to appeal and/or decide to home educate until a place becomes available.

Your options are:

If the school is undersubscribed, then you apply when you get there as an in year admission, and get a place

If the local school or schools are over subscribed, then you’ll get allocated a school in the county which has places, which can be some distance away. You can stay on a waiting list as an in year admission for a more local school but you’ll only get a place if someone leaves in the year group your DC needs.

Go private.

Move before the applications deadline.

That’s pretty much it.

I am in the same situation but for this year. I have applied in my new area, sold my house but at the moment can't find one to buy/rent.

@Garysmum the Local Authority is obliged to find a school place somewhere. If the nearest school with an available place is the school is more than 2 miles away and the child is under 8, or more than 3 miles away and the child is 8 or over, then free transport must be provided. If it's less than this distance then they have no obligation.

The Local Authority is not responsible for making the arrangements compatible with a parent's employment situation, they are only responsible for giving access to a suitable place of education, but school hours are only 6.5 hrs per day for 29 weeks a year which is not a huge fraction of their time. Parents are responsible for making sure that their employment commitments aren't incompatible with meeting their children's need (including sourcing and paying for wrap around care as needed).

If you look on the LEA's website you can see historic information about how popular schools in your new area are. If they are historically unsubscribed, then you have no problem. If the local area is very oversubscribed, then I would pull out all the stops to get moved before the deadline, as you may end up with a school a long way away.

This happened to me, it was 6 weeks before we got a place for dd2 (dd1 got a place immediately but they could only offer a school 4 miles away for dd2 and they started at the same time no wrap around care available!)

Your Lea has to find a place but if your chosen school is full you will not be able to do anything other than go on the waiting list

If it helps for our primary school a few on the waiting list got in in late august when some parents apparently decided against and then in both of my son’s years a few kids left during /at the end of year r which swallowed up the rest of the waiting list

But broadly speaking you can’t apply in a certain area until you have actually moved

If you are moving during the normal admissions round... you can apply for schools in your new area through your old council. You will likely be bottom of the list, but sometimes it works out (my friend got a place 30 miles away as they were only 15 applicants for 15 spaces).
Some councils have a later deadline for people moving into the area. Can be worth checking.

If you don't get a place, the council have an obligation to find you a place somewhere, but not necessarily at a school you chose. If you reject it, the council has fulfilled their obligation. You can remain on waiting lists.

You can appeal, but its nearly impossible to win at Infants.

If there is no space within a reasonable distance, they can apply the Fair Access Protocol and create an extra place.

One thing about the waiting list though it’s not just numbers. If for example you move to a house next door to a school, if there ate 5 already on the list you wouldn’t become number 6. You’d (in many cases) go straight to the top and others would move down. Assuming you were closer than them.