Primary admissions

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Hi, much needed primary admissions advice from experienced mums! We were offered school choice #3. Slightly complicated but due to various developments in between, we would like to be waitlisted for schools 4,5,6. Council said any lower preferences are automatically withdrawn and we need to submit them again as a late application. Does anyone have similar experience? If we reject #3, is there any chance we would be admitted to the regular waiting list for #4,5,6, rather than being added to the very bottom as a late application? If we accept the place, can we still submit a late application and be waitlisted? Trying to get some further guidance from the council but taking time and we dont have much of it until the acceptance deadline. Thanks in advance 🙏🙏

What ever you do, do not reject the place. Accept it and then go on waiting list appeal etc. If you reject the school the LA have no more responsibility to offer you a place and you could end up with no school or a school miles away.

Thanks, do you know if we can still make a late application if we accept the offer? Otherwise the council is not allowing us to go on the regular waitlist for 4,5,6 since we were allocated a higher preference…

Yes, you can (and frankly should) accept the offered place and make applications to get you onto the waiting lists of the schools you’d now prefer. There’s only one waiting list, held in admissions priority order, so applying late won’t make any difference to your place on it; if (say) you live very close to the school you might leapfrog other children you have been on the list longer but live farther away.

Thanks a lot, that’s very helpful