Applying to primary school in a different area

[IWasTangoed]

This may be a stupid question but I'm really not sure what to do. I'm looking to move area soon and am deciding between 3 different places. My final decision will be where a job becomes available. By the time I find a job and secure a home, I will have missed the deadline to apply for reception year at primary school. I can't apply in advance as I won't have an address in my future catchment, but my child can't attend a local primary school because we will need to move.

I understand some people secure a job and rent first until they find a home and so they are in the catchment, but I really don't want to move rapidly twice as I have had quite a few unsettling rental moves over the last few years.

How would you plan this?

As you don't know yet where you'll be living, you apply for a school place where you are living at the moment. Then, when you've moved you contact the admissions team in your new area (new local authority if the move takes you into a different one) and make a 'late' application. That way, if you haven't moved and haven't got a new job then your child still has an allocated school place where you're living.
The only other alternative is to move into the area you wish to be in, rent until everything else is settled and then make a permanent move in the future, but that will depend on how far the new area is from the old area and whether you could still commute for work.

I would check to see if primary schools in the areas you are considering are oversubscribed. If they are, your chances aren’t great, but worth a try though you risk ending up at a school very far away.

If not oversubscribed, I’d apply for a place local to you now. Then once you secure a job and exchange contracts on a new house, you submit an in year application. If not oversubscribed, it’s very easy. I think they have to respond within 2 weeks. We had a spot in our new school within 5 days of submitting the application and my dd started after our move 2 weeks later.