Waiting lists timescales

[Monkey2333]

Advice welcomed please. We will find out in a few hours what school our 4year old has been allocated for a Sept 2016 start. Between submitting our school application and now we are mid-way through purchasing a new family house a few miles away (still under same council but different school catchments). We would like our child to attend the local school near our new house. Our plan is to accept the offered school and then as soon as we exchange contracts on our new house, we’ll put our name on the waiting list for the school local to the new house.
My question is – as exchange of contracts may not happen for approx. 2 weeks I am worried that, during the next two weeks, other children will be put ahead of us in the waiting list ‘queue’ for the school. Does anyone know when Admissions start allocating places to those on waiting lists? Is it immediately after the formal offers have gone out or perhaps there is some initial period whilst parents figure out whether to accept their offered place?? Does anyone know? Thank you

I think you might have to call the LA's school admissions and ask. I know that for our LA parents had two weeks to accept/decline. The one school started giving offers to the waiting list straight away, while another school (a different LA) says it won't until August. This was for secondary this year so it might be the same for primary.

Thank you both, very helpful.

Also, bear in mind that waiting lists are not allowed to be ranked by the time you have spent waiting, they have to be ranked according to how well you fit the criteria. So if you move very close to the school, you could well find yourself at or near the top of the list even if you joined it a few weeks after other applicants.

And yes, there is often a pause whilst acceptances and rejections come in before confirming the number of vacancies and reoffering.