Do admissions work over the Easter holidays?

[MovingAlongNicely]

Do the local authority school admissions stay open during the Easter holidays? Will they still be monitoring waiting lists?

Local authority may well do, schools won't. So if places become available nothing will be done until after the holiday.

Based on the previous message, I'm going to suggest that this might vary. DC's school certainly will be processing admissions over the holiday.

They are focussed on primary at the moment, and will likely be off over bank holidays.

Thanks. I guess I’ll try and put it out of my mind

Schools generally can't afford to pay the extra to have staff working in the holidays these days. Most are term time only now.

Wouldn’t the local authority know before the school though? In my area you contact the LA about admissions, not the school.

(not being snippy btw, I’m genuinely unsure of how all this works)

The schools have to inform the LA if it’s mid phase or mid year. Y7 and YR are mostly managed by LAs. Staff there are not term time only.

Sorry I should’ve been clearer, I’m asking for yr 7 intake for this coming September.

thanks @TizerorFizz

@MovingAlongNicely Yes. They do work and don’t have term time contracts in general. If admissions are determined by the school, LA staff are irrelevant. If any info is required from the school, generally, admissions won’t get it in the holidays but some schools have SLT available for a bit.

I think it varies by school/LA

The schools I've worked at use the LA as the admissions authority but it still requires the school to do some work. Parents often contact the school to withdraw a place, if there's no one picking up emails then the LA won't be told yet. Waiting lists will come out after Easter.

Best of luck OP.

County Council staff work over the holidays. School staff don't always. In my County, it's the County Council who deal with our Year 7 waiting list. Some parents contact the County Council to withdraw their place, and then the County Council re-allocate it. Some parents however, contact the school to withdraw. That means that the message about the withdrawal won't get to the County Council until school staff are back, so the place won't get re-allocated until then. Unless of course, like me, school staff check their emails from home - even though not paid to do so - and forward any withdrawals to the County when they see them during the holidays. (Which I did last week actually).

Thanks all, appreciate you all taking the time.
I will practice the art of patience and try to forget about it for now 🙂

Admissions staff will definitely be working as it is primary national offer day tomorrow (16 April). Different LAs handle things differently on the Yr. 7 offers for September. Some will be making second round offers later this month - not on the same date - but they will also be dealing with the late applications, so places on the waiting list could move down as well as up.

Thanks for explaining @LadyLapsang that makes sense!