Moving home in summer - school application

[Chessplayer1984]

Hello fellow Mumsnet people!

Could you please advise me regarding my predicament? Any suggestions welcome.

My 10 yo is starting secondary school in September. We have applied to some local schools where we live now, and he has good chances to be accepted to one of the best schools here, but the problem is we are moving in the summer - we want to buy the house soon, but realistically we can have our offer / mortgage accepted by April-May the earliest. When we finally have an address in the new place (which is 200 miles away), it will be past the school application deadlines.

What should I do? Is there anything I could do to increase chances of my 10 yo getting to a decent secondary school?

Should I change my current application to apply to schools in the new place already - even though I do not have an address there yet? If so - should I do through the current (old) council?

How to proceed?

Please help.

If your child is due to start secondary school in September, the deadline for applications has already passed. It was back in October. Anything now will be treated as a late application.

I'd speak to the schools you'd like to apply for in your new location about what they'd advise.

Once places are offered, not all will be taken up. Those who apply late will go on a waiting list (I think) and places offered in accordance with the admissions criteria. I think applying with your current address, with a note on the application about your circumstances, will still slip you to the bottom of the list as priority will be given to those already nearby.

There's a good chance your child has already been allocated a place in your current location as offers day is early March. I don't think changing the application will help now, and I'm not sure if you can even do that at this late stage.

Speak to the schools directly. They will have dealt with this lots of times.

As the previous poster says, you are past the application deadlines already. If you want to change your preferences, you do so through your current LA. However, if they allow the change, it will result in you being treated as a late applicant. This in turn means that you won't get a place at the good local school and, if your move falls through, will be left with a place at an unpopular school that could be some way from home.

I'm afraid there is nothing you can do at this stage to increase your chances of getting a good school in the area to which you are moving. You need to apply for schools from your new address as soon as your new LA will accept that address - some will accept it when you exchange contracts, others won't accept it until you are actually living there. If you move close to a school you want you will have a decent chance of getting a place via the waiting list.

Thanks for your comments.

I realise that changing my preferences now will result in me being a late applicant - but still, will doing it now move me a bit higher on the waiting list?

(When it comes to the local school here, there is zero chance we will stay in the county - even if the house purchase fails, we will still move over to the new place - renting if need be.)

Either way, your application will be counted as late, and date of application is not considered for waiting lists - lists are held in admissions criteria order.

The only advantage to doing so I can think of is if your move might be delayed well into the summer, so you wouldn't have an address in the new area much before the winter term, and there are schools you can apply for in the new area that are usually undersubscribed.

If both of those are true, then this way you stand a chance of getting a place before the start of term even based on your existing address because the schools don't fill from local applicants. You would end up with an unpopular school, but you would have a place for the start of term, and could sit on waiting lists for other schools.