In year admissions - do you have to move house first and hope for the best?

[Zoonose]

I want to relocate from our current area for various reasons. I have a DS in reception who will go into Year One in September. My DD's school application for September 2014 entry will be due to be made in January 2014 and so we want, ideally, to move over the summer and have him in a new school for the start of Year One, so that she has a good chance of getting into the same school.

Am I right, though, that basically we have to move house first, and then apply for school places? In other words, by moving would we be opening ourselves up to the possibility that he may not get a place? There are three good schools in the new area that I would apply for but I know that currently at least two of those have people on the waiting list (six on the list for one of the schools). I am worried that we would move and then there would be no school for him (if that was to be the case, we would probably not move). It feels like a catch-22.

They'd have to find a school, but it might not be one you'd have chosen yourself.

You can apply from your current address and you will be added to the waiting list based on that ie low down, as you're miles away). You can then move up it when you notify your new address. If you find a school you like that has a vacancy, then they must offer you the place straight away, even if you're at the other end of the country. But you then have to take the place up in a timely manner (you should get a few weeks grace, check how much).

Thanks - that's helpful, and reassuring. We live about 50 minutes' drive from the new area at the moment, so it would be possible to drive him over if we had not managed to move - so I think we would be able to take a place up, if there was one - I would prefer to do that in the interim rather than lose out. I had not realised how much school places would complicate things.