Applying from Australia for Year 7

[sammy11480]

Hi lovelies
We are UK citizens living in Australia and are planning to return in 2026 for my DD to start Year 7 in a Lincolnshire secondary school.

As we will need to apply from Oz because applications open soon, we only have our Oz address to put down. Will this place us at a disadvantage when applying for schools as of course we are not in the catchment (only 10,000 miles out!).

I am worried that this will go against us, but am hoping the fact that we are international applicants will be taken into consideration?

Many thanks for any advice on the process.
Sammy.

Entry to king Edward's in Louth is definitely for year 7 nowadays

Sorry - late replying to @BananaDaiquiri but I apologise; updated intel from DH who is from north Lincs, and says that the beaches near Louth are indeed very nice (tho no facilities or attractions obvs). So if you want to live near a nice beach that might be a box ticked. Neither of us is very keen on the Lincs Wolds tho!

I do very much agree that Louth would not be where I would choose to live either bc of lack of amenities and transport. More to the point, I would not live there or somewhere like it with a teen. I grew up in a small village and it was very limiting for me, genuinely.

Not sure about how school places are allocate din Lincs but will have a hunt.

@sammy11480 if you want to be near Louth for family reasons (understandably if you are moving halfway round the world) might Lincoln be an option? Not exactly the biggest city but attractive, with some shops and leisure amenities for sure, and a better place to live as a teen.

If you do go for Louth, I agree there are only two schools. The tests to go to the grammar in Sept 2026 are in Sept of this year. Will that be possible? If not, and especially if your DD is bright, I would strongly recommend looking again for an area that does not have grammars (which is most of the UK tbh and includes at least some parts of Lincoln).

I would do a search online or contact the LA and ask which schools around Louth are under subscribed. You should be ok if you apply to one of those before the deadline of Oct 31.

I would personally look at Lincoln (not grammar but good private schools) or the Sleaford side of Lincoln opening up KSHS or Carres (Girls / Boys respectively) with St George's an excellent back up if you are in catchment.

The lead inspector for Ofsted taught at St George's I believe. So, for a comp, it's very well thought of.

Lincoln is a lovely vibrant city and has really improved in the last five years.

How important is it to you that your child gets a good secondary school? Because if it is, you need to consider coming back in time to have a rental property in the area before the deadline. Otherwise you're getting the scraps thta no-one else wants. Did you really think that rocking up a couple of weeks before term starts would work?

Not my child!

OP, I think that the different possible meanings of ‘on time’ may be confusing for you.

If your child is due to start school in Y7 in September 2026 then an on time application is due in by 31st October 2025.

Any application after that is considered ‘late’ and the only school places available would be those not already offered to on-time applicants (there are region-specific differences about how applications shortly made after 31st October but before the national school places offer day on April 16th 2026 are treated, but applications made after April 16th will always be treated as ‘where has left over spaces to squeeze in late arrivals?’. No schools ‘save’ spaces just in case, and good, popular schools are obviously filled when poorer schools remain relatively empty.

So an on-time application is due more than 10 months before a child starts the school in question.

For grammar schools, there is a further pair of dates to be aware of. The 11+ entrance exam for the grammar serving Louth will be in September 2025 for entrance in September 2026 (as results are needed before the on-time application deadline). You will probably need to be in the area on that date to take the exam - but note that there is also an application window to register to sit the test, and I think that may already have passed (Jan-March 2025). In any case, most applicants will do specific 11+ coaching / prep, which if other areas are a guide will be c. weekly from Sept 2024-Sept 2025, with homework in between.

Moving to a non- grammar area would be much simpler, as then only the October 2025 deadline is relevant.

Oops! Aimed at @sammy11480

How important is it to you that your child gets a good secondary school? Because if it is, you need to consider coming back in time to have a rental property in the area before the deadline. Otherwise you're getting the scraps thta no-one else wants. Did you really think that rocking up a couple of weeks before term starts would work?

I would personally pay for the independent school for one year while organising an in-year place for year 8 IF a grammar school was what I thought best AND I had strong reasons to live in Louth AND couldn't move any earlier AND if in year 8 places reasonably often come up (it would be v risky in Kent but sounds less so in Lincs).

You'd still have to take an entrance test but it would reduce the time pressure.

I was also thinking the child might be really homesick and have a lot of academic adjustments to make and that the independent would have more experience with those things as they have boarders some no doubt from abroad.

Or just move to a comprehensive area.

More research needed OP.

Sought after grammars don't have year 8 places, unless someone happens to leave.

Given the OP is moving from Australia, where I believe the system may be 'children go to their nearest school', the whole 'did you really think...' is quite harsh.

@sammy11480 late registration for KEVI in Louth is still available, according to their website:

https://www.kevigs.org/admissions

But you will need to talk to them about how to sit the test as the expectation is in person in September.

It is helpful to have the score for the test, if you possibly can, as making a late or in year application will otherwise require a different test, so if you have already cleared the qualifying hurdle, that ticks one box.

From the admissions policy for 2026, accessed via that page:

Reserve List: For admission into the intake year the admission authority for King Edward VI Page 3 of 10 Grammar School will operate a reserve list. In the normal admissions round if we refuse a place at our school your child is automatically placed on the reserve list unless you have been offered a higher preference school. A child will only be added to the reserve list if they have achieved the required standard in the selection tests or have been deemed qualified by the independent appeal panel.

King Edward VI Grammar School welcomes applications from the local community of Louth, the surrounding villages, Market Rasen, NE Lincolnshire and beyond. Over the past five years the school has offered places to all those children who have passed the entrance test, who are in Year 6 and attend the following feeder primary schools below and/or live in the school’s free bus travel zone [catchment area] as determined by Lincolnshire Country Council:

We anticipate that approximately a third of places each year will go to children from other primary schools, who have passed the entrance test and live-in North-East Lincolnshire.

If you were thinking of a move across the world, wouldn't you speak to the authorities in the place where you wanted to educate your child before you decided to come back just a week or two before term starts? And consider that you might have to come back sooner?

We moved back from the USA. I couldn’t apply until i exchanged contracts on the house we were buying.

OP is doing her research now, which is more than a year before she needs the school place. She asked the question in her first post about the process and has returned to the thread to post again.

Using MN (and she may be doing other research too) is a perfectly valid way to find out information on the English school system. The extra wrinkle of Lincs being a grammar area and what that means for deadlines is also part of the learning.

She may adjust her plans with the answers on here.

It's 8 months before she needs an address in the UK, that isn't that long.....

Sure - but it’s not unreasonable for her to start researching it now if she is coming from a completely different system.

I’ll leave it there, as I feel we see the purpose of MN - support by parents for parents - as very different. Have a good evening.