Applying for an in year place...?

[Hannaschaub]

Hello, we are moving to Surrey from abroad and need to apply for primary school places for year 1 and 4, for September 2017. I'm not sure if we will have a house when admissions need to be in in Jan 15th, or is this date just for reception year applications and all other year applications are "in year applications"? I'm confused...

And if we do an in year application, it's only done 4 weeks befor. But buy then surely all schools will be oversubscribed..what happens then?
At that point we will defenetly be living in catchment area. But does it matter that late?
We are most likely to be looking at Dorking, witch seems to have 2-3 good schools but then 2 that need improvement and 1 worse, that l really don't want my kids to end up in...

I'm not sure what to do?

The Jan 15th deadline is only if you are applying for a reception place for September 2017.
For in-year places you apply once you have a UK address.

You can apply as soon as you exchange on your house purchase, but if there is a place this can only be 'held' for you for 6 weeks.

There is also no guarantee that you will get spaces in the schools you want if they are oversubscribed, in which case the LA will offer schools that have spaces - but not necessarily the same school for both DC. If you turn down the schools offered the LA will have no further responsibility to find you a place (although some LAs are more helpful than others), so you are best off accepting the spaces offered and going on waiting lists for a place at the siblings school.

You can apply when you have exchanged so your solicitor can provide proof of address

We moved in year for our son and as part of the normal process for dd. We ended up in a school the other side of town which was less well regarded although recent ofsted was good ( it was actually lovely).

We ended up getting a place at the school around the corner and moved ds (and dd) in year. They were both offered places at the school (we had put dd in the same school as ds for logistical reasons but didn't have a space at the school we wanted).

So you might not end up with the school you want at first, but put your children on the waiting list and they might get a place. That's the best you can do.

In our case we were told that the school was over subscribed and not much movement. However we got lucky. It wasn't anywhere near as over subscribed as London schools which was what I was used to!

If your children are beyond reception age you will probably not have a huge choice of schools. It will be a question of finding a school with a place for one of your DCs and hoping that a place will come up for the other (higher chance if you are at the top of waiting list for sibling place). There are the five primaries in the town itself plus schools in neighbouring villages eg. North downs, Surrey Hills.

I would see the schools for yourself. There is only one school that isn't so popular purely due to its catchment area being on the less well off side of town. However the school in question is much improved - it has excellent facilities and a very good Head so I've heard. Some of the schools that had mediocre Ofsteds a few years back are now on the up.