Do you need to apply for Primary Schools Admission if you are going Private?

[Ahmawa]

My sisters son is at a private Nursery of a private school and they will simply enroll him onto the private school. So do they need to still fill in the school admission form or inform the council?

No, of course not.

You don't need to, but you might want to just in case your circumstances change between then and now. There is no obligation, however, and if they are absolutely certain they're not going to use the local schools there is no point in entering the system and receiving an offer just to turn it down. Where I live (London), people are often undecided and so opt to apply to both private and state schools, making a decision once they have their offers. Some people would be happy with a particular state school but no other, or a particular private school but wouldn't pay except for that one.

Why would you? She's not applying? 🤔

Thank you for the quick replies. My sister and her husband have very secure jobs and were always planning to put their son through private school as they fall out of the catchment area of an outstanding school by a few metres!

The outstanding school has been oversubscribed for the last decade so they thought it's no point even trying.

Is their question more that someone in the council needs to no the child is enrolled at school and they need to understand what reporting obligation they may have? The councils seem to know who ids enrolled in the private schools. We didn't do anything in that regard. When I turned down DDs secondary place I named her school. They say they will follow up to check but they never did.

Sorry 'know'

no you don't.
but I would apply anyway mainly to show council how many dc actually are in need of a school place. you can always decline.

No

We filled it in simply because I thought the council would want to know that he was being educated somewhere. I didn’t put down any state schools I just wrote the name of the private school he was going to.

Thanks. But then how would the council know if there is a child that's not being educated either at home or in a private setting?

OP. The council might know of such a child if Child Benefit is being claimed or if 15 hours Child care is being claimed for. As the child finished nursery stage the claims will cease and so the child should be entering education somewhere. I believe some children do fall through the cracks and I also believe that is a reason some pressure has been brought to make parents "register" their child as home educated but as I understand it, this is not an idea welcome to some who choose to Home Education as it is considered a parents right to decide how to fulfil their legal obligations. If you have no intention of taking a state school place there is no need to complete the application form for one.

No

Only if they might not get in - some oversubscribed private schools don't guarantee transfer to reception from nursery.

Yes i would still apply. Someone I know had their private school place declined shortly before the child was due to start due to poor behaviour. They'd not applied for state primaries.

Similarly if anything happens, redundancy, illness preventing one of them from working etc, they'll wish they'd applied. If their circumstances don't change, then they can turn the place down.

My DS is at a private pre school and we don’t need to apply elsewhere as he too will simply continue where he is. However I have applied to the local state school as circumstances can change so we want to have that option as a stand by.