Applying for a school place while living overseas

[LucyHannah1983]

We will be living abroad from this September, but just for 1 year.
I want to know if it's possible to apply for a school place in the U.K for when we return, using our permanent home address (we will be renting it out).
Do you actually have to be living at the address? How will they know?

If anyone has any experience if this, let me know!
Thanks

Yes, you do. Unless you are crown servants, then things are different. Your application needs to be from the child's permanent address at the time of application.

How would they know? Well, many councils ask for council tax details. In areas of oversubscription, if they suspect fraud they can ask for more proof of residency. Other applicants are often not shy in coming forward with details of fraudulent applications too.

A place obtained fraudulently can be taken away at any point, so it's really not worth the risk.

In our LA, you could use the UK address to apply, but the issue is that you can't hold a school place in advance. So if you applied for a place and were offered it, your child would have to take up the place within a couple of weeks. After 1st of July the schools can offer a place for September - so say if you already owned the house, and had a confirmed return date of 1st August, then you could apply for a place on 1st July using your UK address and be offered the place for a September start.

It varies between LAs, a bit. Some of them seem to be much more relaxed than others - as a generalisation I would guess urban centres with more over subscribed schools are more strict about the rules. Are you applying for an in year place or during the usual admissions rounds?

you don't say how old your chil/ren are. It might be more problematic if you are applying for a reception place or a year 7 place as applications are time limited, and after applications close you would be classed as a late applicant and could find your options quite restricted. An in year application would be easier, except for a Y1 or Y 2 place as you could come up against the infant class size regulations.

And as above posters say, not being in the country at the time of application could also raise issues in some local authorities. I think my first thought would be to sound out your LA admissions team, explain the situation hypothetically and see what their response is.

I have experience of this.

If you can afford it, you can arrange a place in an independent school in advance. Fee-paying schools are not bothered about where you live and for how long.