How do people know that they have to apply for schools between 1 September and 15 January?

[CruCru]

I know that I have to do this because I am on Mumsnet. How do other people find out? Do councils write to people with children due to start school to let them know what to do?

I know thanks to MN! DD's nursery have told me too but otherwise I'd have no idea at all. I've not seen signs in the library (we go at least once per week) or children's centres (3 different ones each week).

I mentioned it in passing to a few mums of kids who are due to start next Sept and hardly any knew! They had absolutely no idea of the timings. Apparently HVs tell you in our area but I don't know many mums who know their HV!

I only twigged that I needed to send a load of paperwork to the council to register my DS last week. (moving from independent to state) Queue PANIC STATIONS! emails and phone calls and the forms arrived today, I'll get on with my eAdmissions now.

Aha! Just got a letter from the council to tell me that I need to apply.

No letters here. Nothing at (private) nursery either when DC1 was there (suspect it may be different this year with DC2). Nothing in the library, though when I asked they did go to the back room and find me a primary admissions booklet . Nothing outside schools.

In fact, there was no information at all except on the council website, or the booklets if you knew where to ask for a copy. Basically, you had to know the approximate deadlines in order to know when to start looking for information, and had to know the info was there to look for in order to get hold of it. I think it's a terrible system.