School Admissions

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We are moving overseas in August for two years. When we return, it will be Aug 2016 - DD turns five that September. What happens with school applications? I won't have a UK address so won't be in any catchment area and I don't want her ending up in a struggling school miles from where we live because of that.

I've tried our local school admissions website/helpline but all they seem to say is the applications aren't open until November next year.

With no UK address it will be difficult to submit an application . You will really just have to ring the LA on your return to make a late application and chance whereever has a space, sorry, and go on waiting lists if that school doesn't suit.

You can't do anything right now. To apply for reception, you need to be living here; so you couldn't apply from the US I'm afraid. You would need to move back and make a late application as soon as you have an address.

Depending on where you are and how oversubscribed schools are, it may well mean your DD gets a place in a school you don't want some distance away. However, you can go on waiting lists for others.

Your best bet is probably to locate back in the UK as close to a good school you like as you can, and so hopefully get on the waiting list in a high position (most reception admissions have a category of distance from school). Unless you can locate back with your DD earlier, and apply from a proper UK address in the January.

Sorry, no idea where I got US from! No idea where you will be ;-)

If I've read this right, you return to the UK in August 2016 and your daughter turns 5 in September 2016 - kids start reception the August after they turn 5 so you would make a normal application for a September 2017 entry. Deadline usually mid January 2017. You will presumably have some sort of address where you are living, whether rented or not, so you would use that address.

Agree with slow - if your DD turns 5 in Sept 2016 you will be back in time to do the normal application process for reception.

I don't agree - reception is 4/5 year olds and if you want your DC to go to school for the reception year you apply for a place for the September when you child is 4 (qualifying date 1 September), though you can defer the place for a later start of you want.

Unless the reason for being overseas is Crown Service, you cannot apply for a place until you are back in UK.

So OP will need to apply immediately on return for a reception place for September 16, and see what places there are. The applications window will openin the autum term 15 and close mid-January 16, and unless OP comes back before the deadline there really isn't anything she can do other than tangle with the late/in-year application process.

I am struggling to work out why it would be 2017...My DS birthday is April started when he was 4 turned 5 in that year ..Surely it would be 2016 start?

Oh sorry yes - please ignore my post!

The dd will be one of the oldest in the class starlight, your child is towards one of the youngest, that's why they would be the same age when they start.Kids start school in the September of the academic year they turn 5, whether that's at the very beginning of the year, September, or at the very end of the year, August.

You wouldn't be able to apply OP until you actually had an address in the UK, and as others have said you wold be a late applicant and effectively waiting to get to the top of a waiting list if you weren't happy with the school you were initially allocated.

kids start reception the August after they turn 5

No, they don't. They start Reception (in September) in the academic year in which they will turn five. If the OP's daughter will be five in Sept 2016, she will be starting school in Sept 2016 too.

In Scotland it is the Aug following the 5th Birthday - are some of you in Scotland?

Sorry, I was talking rubbish! Don't know where that came from. Later posters are right.

We moved back to the UK after 5 years abroad and couldn't apply for schools until we were back in the country. We moved on August 28th and we had schools sorted for them by Sept 3rd!