Applications for September 2027 are open
Published 7 September 2026
Applications for September 2027 are open
Published 7 September 2026
The short version
- Two deadlines, months apart. Secondary is the end of October. Primary is mid-January.
- Missing the deadline does not mean no school. It means you are near the back of the queue.
- Apply through your council, not the school — even for the school next door.
Who needs to do what
If your child is in Year 6, you are applying for secondary school for next September. Your deadline is the end of October, and it is the one people miss.
If your child turns 4 between 1 September 2026 and 31 August 2027, you are applying for a reception place. Your deadline is mid-January.
Everyone else can ignore all of this until next year.
⚠️ Applications open on different days in different council areas. Most open around the start of September. Check yours — the exact date is on your council's website, and it is not the same everywhere.
Where do I actually apply?
Your local council. Not the school.
This catches people out every year. You might be applying to a school across a boundary, a church school with its own admissions rules, or an academy. You still apply through the council where you live, on one form, listing your choices in order.
If a school has its own supplementary form — some faith schools do — you fill that in as well, not instead.
Search for "[your council] school admissions" and it will be the first result.
How many schools should I put down?
All of them. Use every preference you are given, usually three to six depending on the council.
Two things worth knowing, because both are widely misunderstood:
Listing a school lower down does not hurt your chances there. Schools do not see your order. Your order only decides which offer you get if you qualify for more than one.
Listing only one school does not improve your odds. It just means that if you miss out, you have no other preference to fall back on and the council allocates you whatever is left.
🔒 So put down a realistic one as well as the ones you want. Not because you have given up — because it costs nothing and it is the difference between a place you can live with and a place you had no say in.
What actually decides who gets in?
Not how much you want it, and not the order you listed.
Every school publishes admission criteria — a ranked list used when there are more applicants than places. They vary, but common ones are:
- children in care, and children who were in care
- children with an education, health and care plan naming the school
- a sibling already at the school
- distance from home to school
- for faith schools, a religious criterion
- for some schools, a catchment area
Read the criteria for each school you are considering. They are on the school's website and on the council's. The distance rule especially: last year's cut-off distance tells you far more about your chances than any league table.
What if we move house?
Use the address you will actually be living at, and be able to prove it.
Councils check. Using a relative's address, or an address you are about to leave, is the one thing that gets an offer withdrawn — sometimes after the child has started.
If you are moving between applying and the deadline, tell the council. If you are moving after, tell them then.
What happens next
You apply now, and then nothing happens for months. That is normal.
Offers arrive on a single national day for each phase — 1 March for secondary, 16 April for primary in 2027. Everyone in England finds out on the same day.
We will cover offer day, waiting lists and appeals nearer the time. For now the job is just to get the form in.
The one thing to do today
Find your council's admissions page and write both deadlines in your calendar.
That is genuinely it. Ten minutes now, and the rest can wait until October.
Where this comes from
- School admissions: how to apply, gov.uk. The deadlines, the offer days, the fact that applications go through the council, and that opening dates vary by area.
⚠️ Admission criteria, catchment distances and supplementary forms are set locally. We have described the common shapes; your council's and your school's own published criteria are the authority, not this page.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.