School application - separated, co-parents

[lineandsinker]

My DS will be starting school next September. I am divorced from his Dad but we share parenting and access 50/50, living around 20 mins away from each other.

My question is: how do we approach applying for a school? His Dad lives in one LA and I another (my town is part of a unitary city council whereas he lives in county council area). Do we need to settle on an area that our DS will go to school and apply to that LA? Or can we make two applications: one to each LA? We don’t want to be left in a situation where he is not allocated a preferred school in one area, which will then make transport difficult for the other parent, particularly as he will be making that journey 50% of the time.

The child benefit claim is made at my address but my son is registered at his Dad’s address for GP/NHS.

Thanks in advance!

You get the child benefit - you make the application from your address and all applications are assessed from that location. Only one application.

You need to check the exact requirements for your local authority in terms of which address you use, but you can only make one application, and it should come from the address of the child's main residence.

If he genuinely is 50/50 between you, then normally it would be the address used for child benefit, but some LAs let you pick which address you use if the residence is genuinely split. You would need to check the exact requirements of proof for your LA.

You can apply for schools in either LA, but on the one application which is sent to the main residence LA and they co-ordinate applications. Realistically he will may end up at a school much nearer his main residence if you are 20 mins apart as allocations will be done by admissions criteria, which for reception is often distance assuming you don't fall under any other category - again you would need to check for each school, as some areas still have defined preference areas/catchments and others don't.

My LA let amicable parents with 50/50 decide which address to use. It's only if they disagree on which address to use that the address the child benefit is claimed at has to be used.

Thank you all for the really helpful replies!