Secondary National Offer Day 2026

[LancreWowhawk]

Is anyone else anxiously awaiting news of secondary school allocations for September 2026? If so, come and bite your nails with me!

We've applied for 4 schools in our London borough, 3 girls schools and then our 4th choice is co-ed. Last year, we'd have got whichever one we put first, which will be down to changing demographics in London, so I'm hoping the same is true this year. As recently as 3 years ago, we wouldn't have got either of our first 2 choices on either faith or distance grounds, so I'm not counting my chickens!

We should be safe with either of our 3rd or 4th choices, as there's no year we wouldn't have got either of them, but still - I just want to know now!

Being oversubscribed means guaranteed more funding so the sought after schools get better not worse relative to the undersubscribed ones and it’s a vicious circle in a falling birth rate.

I know that a few primary schools here (Yorkshire) have reduced their PAN for the Sept 2026 intake. The admissions figures are published every year, and I could see that schools that had been fully subscribed a few years ago had reduced intakes over the past few years, even with no change to leadership/ reputation (including my DD’s school). No change to secondary numbers, but as it seems to have been a post-Covid issue, that might come through in a few years.

I live in a city where housing is expensive compared to the wider area, so that may be a factor too.

In most LAs, you will already be on the waiting list for any school that you named as a higher preference than the one offered.

Practice for offering to the waiting list varies from LA to LA. Some have a formal second round of allocations when they offer all the places that have been rejected. Some start offering to the waiting list as soon as places are rejected, so if you aren't on it you won't get a place that way. However, if you want to be on the waiting list for a school you didn't name as one of your preferences, you may have to wait to get on that. Note also that some LAs limit how many waiting lists you can be on.

There is no additional big release of places. They aren't allowed to hold places back for a second round of allocations. However, some LAs have a formal second round where they allocate any places that have been rejected along with any places that weren't filled at unpopular schools.

Apologies the latter is what I meant - a mass release of rejected places rather than a drop feed from now place by place. I know they aren't holding any back.

@kittyfairy66yes I agree re the friendships. They aren’t guaranteed to stick at secondary school also she can obviously maintain the friendships without being at the same school. It’s also good for them to have friends outside of school. She was much calmer & positive last night after a good chat with her sister. She’s an emotional little soul.

Can anyone tell me what happens when a place comes up on the waiting list? Apparently we are first on the list currently.

Honestly not sure what to do if offered it. We had totally accepted that second choice was more likely and DD is now wobbling. Do they give you any time to think or do you need to make the switch straight away?

Omg my brain has been mushed by this process!

It depends which LA you are in @Tahoe11 - some give you a chance to choose whether to take it, some you accept it automatically and your previous place is removed, and you have accepted that just by being on the waiting list. You need to check your own LA rules to see which you are.

Oh gosh. Thanks. We're in Cambridgeshire.
DD in tears this morning saying she doesn't know what to do and doesn't want to make the wrong choice! It's almost worse than just being allocated one though I know we're in a privileged position!
We've been offered the village school. It's 500m away. The waitlist school is 2 miles away but it's out of the village. It has an excellent reputation and all her friends will be going as her primary was out of the village. It's a choice between two different lifestyles really. A lot for a ten year old to consider!

I'll call admissions at 9 and find out what the process is!

They are required to consult before making changes to their admissions policy, including on PAN reductions. They will have just done that if they want to make changes for 27/28. However, if anyone wants to challenge the changes or do not believe an admissions policy aligns with the school admissions code, they can object to the schools adjudicator by 15/5/26 for the policy for the 27/28 academic year. You can find out more, including reading previous decisions, on the website of the Office of the Schools Adjudicator.

@Tahoe11good luck with your decision. I agree it is a lot for them. I’m almost dreading getting a space on the waitlist now my DD is feeling more positive. It sounds like they are both very good options though

Even with people sending their child to their local school, which probably happens in most places outside of London, you still get people trying to move into catchment of good schools precisely so they can send their child to the local school.

Our house is worth around £225k, but the same type of house (two-bed terrace, nothing fancy) within the catchment area of our preferred school (Outstanding rating, great exam results) would be around £300k. And the closer you get to the school, the higher the prices get for similar houses. It’s social engineering by house prices. We did get in even though we’re out of catchment, but it was a gamble.

I don’t see how this could be stopped by any new legislation, unless school places are allocated by some kind of lottery, but then you could end up with children travelling long distances rather than attending their local school, parents with children in three different schools miles away from each other, etc.

I hope you got info about what your LEA does about waiting list places. I remember a post on here a year or two ago where the child got allocated second place school, got used to the idea, then because a place came up at the first place school (this was a couple of months after allocation day) they were allocated it and the original place at second choice school was withdrawn. It caused a lot of upset as the child (with ASC) had done settling-in sessions at second place school and was now set on attending. I'm not sure what the outcome of that scenario was, but it's good to know so you can try and avoid a similar upset.

Where I am in Surrey I think they offer you the place before withdrawing the current one, but to be sure I rang a school I no longer wanted my son to attend to ask that he be removed from the wait list. It had been our second choice based on distance, but having learnt more about the school between choosing it and finding out our allocated school, I knew it would be disastrous for him. The school was quite surprised as most people ringing them were asking to be put ON the wait list!

My son is at our fourth choice that he was originally allocated, which felt like the end of the world initially, but has since turned out to be the best option. They are a really inclusive, tolerant school with caring teachers who don't impose rules for rules sake, but allow accommodations for those with extra needs. Although my son will tell us he hates school, he sees himself staying here for sixth form and wouldn't go anywhere else - I fear if he had gone to another school we'd be struggling to get him there.

Good luck to your daughter in deciding what to do.

We pulled our daughter out and won’t be enrolling her siblings private. We moved to surrey from London. We just got a place at a top state secondary school in our area. House prices are outrageous, but we finally got on the property ladder after years of renting. When looking at the demographics at the school - it’s mostly white kids and single digit free school meals and no pupil premium. We couldn’t afford the VAT and grandparents were going to cover the other two children (first daughter is mine from another marriage) and we’ve said don’t bother. Families like ours are the ones that left private or won’t now enroll our other children and have taken the places from kids who didn’t go private and who probably didn’t have a choice to.. for whatever that is worth.

This is exactly what we did. We left private and renting in london to buying a house in surrey nearest we could find to the top local state school and got in. I’d like it to be different but it isn’t and the government should have considered that they were creating these issues when tacking vat on private school fees- the chasm between rich and poor only gets further divided and the best state school spots get devoured by people who can afford the area

It is harder to get into the most sought after state secondaries in London, because of the VAT on private school fees.

@Araminta1003 is there any evidence for that? Ime of the school I work in (one of the best) & the network I’m in we haven’t seen a marked increase in applications. I appreciate it’s location specific as some of outer boroughs are seeing an influx of dc particularly the cheaper areas. And of course very hard to analyse the date because often the dc who would go to private school also live in the catchment for the best states as they tend to be the nicest/more desirable areas. It will be interesting to see the later catchment offers for some of the boroughs. But I do think funding and fewer dc will case more disparity between schools and where traditionally parents would be happy with their 2nd/3rd choice in the future they may only want their 1st choice as there is a bigger gulf.

What I’m annoyed about is my daughter didn’t get her first choice. We live in a close just off of a main road. The school has a bus route that goes straight to the school.

Yet children who got in the school actually live a mile further away , and don’t use a direct bus route .

The fact we live closer, will this reason be good enough for an appeal? How can these kids be accepted when the live further away and no direct transport?

@bananashoes Im not that knowledgeable about Surrey schools although I know falling rolls are an issue there too & that the best state secondary is Catholic! The demographics lean towards white in general so I’m not sure about that point. Of course some families have left private, I just haven’t seen a huge influx happening into the state schools I know.

@Paul2023 what’s the admission criteria? a number of things can trump distance eg feeder school, siblings, etc

A popular school near me has a defined catchment that for various reasons doesn’t include the next village.
So you could live in that village, maybe less than 2 miles from the school, and not get in, while dc in another village 5 miles away are in catchment so get priority.

In this case it’s to do with distance to nearest school but could something like this be the case for you? What are the admission criteria?

No there is a more local secondary school for us and the kids I’ve mentioned. The school we didn’t get is actually in another town.

Neither is in the catchment area officially.

We live in a town with two secondary schools, which are both sadly inadequate.

I don’t see how these kids got in and we didn’t. We have a direct bus from the main road. They don’t. We live slightly closer.

Ans yet we both have nearer schools.Can we challenge this ?

Thank you. That sounds a crazy system!

I called admissions this morning and they said that if the place came up they would offer it to me by email and would like me to respond 'As soon as possible ' in that scenario.

She also said that if I accept the place at the current offer, the waitlist stays open until December 31st. So in theory we could start at the current school and then make the decision to switch if a place became available - not that we would, I just thought it was interesting!

Daughter has come home today saying she wants to take the first preference if available so that makes things easier. Now we wait!

Could these kids have siblings, staff parents, EHCPs, or attend feeder primaries? You would never know in a lot of cases

They will make schools take x% of disadvantaged pupils (probably 10%). They may use levers such as they have to be out of catchment, so those disadvantaged pupils in catchment are excluded. A hard balancing act. Too many and the school will change and parents will look elsewhere or home educate.

What are the criteria for the school you wanted? The bus route is unlikely to be one.

It could be that the other ppl you know are LAC or have SEN naming the school?