Change of address treated as late application?

[user64332]

I have seen a few people answer these posts who work in primary admissions so hoping someone with experience can help.

I applied for a primary place for my dd on time, and intended to change address before 28th Feb, but our house sale has had big delays due to Covid and we are now not exchanging until next week. So we've just missed the deadline for proof of change of address. I saw an old post on here from someone who said that if you change address after the secondary deadline, your application is treated as late. I did not see this in the info provided on the council website. Is this true?! If so, I will hold off changing my address until the school places are offered in April. The schools we have applied for are further away from our current address but we'd have even less chance as a late applicant. We have our current tenancy and will be moving slowly and paying both lots of council tax until April anyway so it wouldn't be against the rules not to say until after offer day as we won't be in the new house yet. Can anyone shed some light on this?

It is up to your LA. There should be something on their website about this. However, it is likely that you will be treated as a late application if you want them to use your new address. If you aren't moving to the new house until after offer day I would stick with your current address until then.

You need to check but generally if you say you want to change address after the final cut off point you will be treated as a late application and therefore be at the bottom of the admission criteria list. I would suggest that you do need to inform the LA admission team but you need to be saying to them in writing that you need to inform them of a change in address but that this is only for communication purposes and the original address stands in terms of admissions.
If you do not get a preference school, using the original address, then after the initial allocations when they open up their waiting lists, you should then check with the LA that they are now using the new address as this is more likely to be beneficial in being nearer the preferred school.

When this happened to us, we moved a long way away and when I did an application to local primaries I was thinking it would be a 'late' application. There was a section to go through online for recently moved to the area and then a box to tick if you applied on time in the previous borough (which we had) and so it was treated as if it was an on time application pushing to the top of waiting lists and so we were allocated a place at our first choice school.

Hope it all works out for you.

It varies LA by LA but ours clearly say you have to be in the catchment address (if that's how you got in) on the first day of term, so you may lose your place anyway if you move out of catchment between offer day and the start of term. Carefully check the admissions info.

oours clearly say you have to be in the catchment address (if that's how you got in) on the first day of term, so you may lose your place anyway if you move out of catchment between offer day and the start of term

I do wish LAs wouldn't try things like this. Under the Admissions Code there are only three reasons a place can be withdrawn once it has been offered. Moving out of catchment is not one of them. If an LA does take a place away under these circumstances it should be straightforward to get it back at appeal.

@prh47bridge

oours clearly say you have to be in the catchment address (if that's how you got in) on the first day of term, so you may lose your place anyway if you move out of catchment between offer day and the start of term

I do wish LAs wouldn't try things like this. Under the Admissions Code there are only three reasons a place can be withdrawn once it has been offered. Moving out of catchment is not one of them. If an LA does take a place away under these circumstances it should be straightforward to get it back at appeal.

Oh really - I did not know that, that's really interesting. We actually are putting off moving for that reason - have I misinterpreted the rules? They do seem to imply that if you move your place could be in jeopardy:

'If you move at any time during the admissions process (the admissions process covers the entire period from submitting your application to your child starting school), you must inform the School Admissions Team immediately and include circumstances of your move to ensure that the correct address is used for your child’s application and school places are offered fairly and correctly. If you move to a new address and have advised us, once our address verification checks have been made, we will revise your child’s position on the waiting lists for each of the schools that you prefer so that your application is considered correctly following this change of circumstances.'

have I misinterpreted the rules

No. They have. I have helped a number of people win appeals in this situation. They can (and should) alter your position on any waiting lists to reflect your new address but they should not take away a place that has been offered.

Having said that, putting off your move is wise. Some LAs do remove places in this situation forcing parents to go through an appeal to get the place back. You don't want that stress and uncertainty if you can avoid it.

@prh47bridge

have I misinterpreted the rules

No. They have. I have helped a number of people win appeals in this situation. They can (and should) alter your position on any waiting lists to reflect your new address but they should not take away a place that has been offered.

Having said that, putting off your move is wise. Some LAs do remove places in this situation forcing parents to go through an appeal to get the place back. You don't want that stress and uncertainty if you can avoid it.

Thank you - that is an excellent point, just because we would win an appeal doesn't mean it's wise to put ourselves in a position of needing one. We'll keep with our original plan of waiting until late autumn to move. Thank you for your advice, much appreciated :)