Moving secondary schools at short notice

[Bubbletea81]

Hi,

My stepson will potentially be moving to live with us at short notice. It's a move to a new city (still in England) so would need to move schools. He's 13 so in year 9.
My question is, does anyone have any experience of moving schools part way through term and can give any advice on how difficult it is, is there any emergency place process and what would qualify, where do we even start?

(Appreciate there may be comments about how it's not the right thing to do to move him at this point/part way through the year, etc, please remember you don't know the situation and there are solid reasons for the question :) )

TIA!

Go on your local authority website and read the advice about in-year applications for starters.

The LA will find him a place but it may not be immediate and there's no "emergency" system as such.

If you have an idea of likely schools you could call their admissions person and ask if they're full in year 9.

Has your stepson ever been in care? If so, then that would give you priority for a place.

If you call the LA they can tell you which schools have places. You’ll then be able to do an in year transfer form. We did this March of year 9, and DD started at her new school after Easter. All was fine and it was an easy move.

If social services are involved in this move (I'm not asking you to confirm deny or explain!) then the SW can contact the LA as there is a fair access protocol and other admission criteria that could mean a place is found above PAN locally if all schools are full.

It'll all depend on LA and reasons but I would start by contacting your own LA and speaking to someone for advice so if/when it happens you are 1 step ahead.

Thanks for all your help! Social Services aren't involved so it sounds like contacting the LA is the approach to take. I've checked the LA's website on all your advice and it also says we can contact the school directly so we'll give that a go.
Thank you 😊

In our area when we moved house we had to ring the schools ourselves to find out about spaces. The LA couldn't tell us. We then put did an application and listed our preferences. We out the nearest two top.of the list even though they both said they had no spaces, and then listed the schools which had space in order of preference. In the end we got one of the closer ones so you never know!

Please remember that even if school A tells you this afternoon that there is a place in the year group, your DSS won't be considered for it until an actual formal application has been received. E.g. you ring a school 'today' and there is a space, then you spend the next few days ringing round other schools and don't submit an application for those with spaces until the following week, even where there was originally a space and no-one on a waiting list, someone else may in the meantime have submitted a formal application and had the place allocated to their DC before your application is received.

So if finding 'a' school place is of the essence, you really need to apply ASAP (not necessarily worrying about phoning round first) through whichever procedure applies in your LA. There is no requirement for LAs to process all in year applications in the same way as the coordinated admissions scheme for the normal year of entry, so this can range from 'submit preferences on a CAF, LA coordinates for all schools' to 'apply to each school individually' (where no schools are under LA control - as is the case e.g. with secondary schools in Essex).

@Bubbletea81 the student will remain on roll with his current school until he is "deregistered" so you will (hopefully) find the most support comes from the person in charge of absence at his current school if he doesn't return after half term.