Getting a school place when you move house

Applying for a school place outside the normal round — after the September intake, because you've moved — is called an in-year application, and it works differently from the application you made when your child started school. There's no national deadline, no offer day, and no guarantee that the school you want has a space in the year group you need.

The moving house with children page covers the rest of moving with a family. This one is just the admissions process, because it's the part that catches people out and the part with real deadlines in it.

The timing trap

Here's the bind almost every moving family hits. Councils want evidence you'll actually live at the new address — gov.uk says you may need to supply proof such as a mortgage or rental agreement or the deeds, and to prove you'll live in the area before the start of the next school term. But you often don't have any of that until exchange, or in Scotland until the missives are concluded. So the application can't start as early as you'd like.

And at the other end: once a place is offered, gov.uk says the child will usually start at the beginning of the following term. So a move in the middle of a term can mean weeks of travelling back to the old school, or weeks out of school altogether — which is the thing worth planning around, rather than discovering in week one.

England: how in-year applications work

• You apply through your local council, even when the schools are in a different council's area, and even if you've just moved to England. Some academies and free schools take applications directly instead, so ask the council which applies to the schools you want.
• Contact the council for in-year applications — gov.uk's instruction is that they can tell you which schools still have places and how to apply. "Which schools have space in Year 4" is a question with an actual answer; catchment maps and Ofsted ratings aren't a substitute for it.
• Listing only one school doesn't improve your chances there. That's stated for the normal round and the logic holds in-year: you're ranking preferences, not demonstrating commitment.
• If your child has an EHC plan, the plan may name a school, and a school named in an EHC plan must give your child a place. That's a different and much stronger route — take advice early rather than applying in the ordinary way.

If the school is full

Two things happen in parallel, and most people only do the first.

1. 1

   Take the place you're offered, if there is one

   Where a child has no place, the council finds one — usually at the nearest school with space. Accepting it doesn't cost you anything at the school you wanted, which is the point people miss.

2. 2

   Join the waiting list as well

   gov.uk is explicit: you can add your child's name to a waiting list even if they have been offered a place at another school, and the admission authority must keep a waiting list open for at least the first term of each school year. If a place comes up you get a formal offer, and you can accept it even if your child has already started somewhere else.

3. 3

   Appeal, separately, for each refusal

   You can appeal against every rejection, but each one separately and only once each. The timings are in the next section — they're generous at the start and then fixed, so the mistake is missing the window rather than losing the hearing.

"Is the council obliged to give us our nearest school?"

No — and this is the single most common misunderstanding about in-year admissions. The duty is to provide a place, not a particular one. gov.uk puts it plainly for the normal round and the same logic runs in-year: where a child isn't offered a place at any school applied for, the council must provide one at another school, usually the nearest school with places still available. Living closest to a school doesn't entitle you to it; being nearest may count in that school's own oversubscription criteria, which is a different thing and only matters when a place exists to allocate.

If there is genuinely nothing anywhere — every school in reach full in that year group — the route out is the Fair Access Protocol. Every local authority has to have one; it's the mechanism for placing children who aren't getting in through the ordinary process, and the Department for Education publishes "Fair access protocols: advice for local authorities and school admission authorities" alongside the statutory School Admissions Code. Ask the admissions team directly whether your child's case falls under it, by name — it's the question that moves a stuck application, and it isn't something they always volunteer.

The appeal timetable (England)

What the panel is actually deciding is worth knowing before you write anything. It must consider whether the school's admission criteria were properly followed and comply with the admissions code — if they weren't, your appeal must be upheld. Failing that, it weighs your reasons for this school against the school's reasons for not admitting any more children at all. So an appeal is two arguments, not one: was the process right, and does this particular child's case outweigh the pressure on the school.

Scotland: placing requests, not applications

The process north of the border is its own, and the vocabulary differs. Your council allocates a place at your catchment area school — the area around a single school, whose children are normally given a place there, with most councils publishing catchment maps. If you want a different school you make a placing request, and whether it's granted depends on whether there are free places.

• If a placing request is refused, mygov.scot's first suggestion is to talk to the council and check they know all the reasons for the request — before anything formal.
• Then a formal appeal. Councils run their own appeal processes and your decision letter explains how; there's no single national timetable like England's.
• If the appeal itself wasn't carried out properly, you can take the case to your local sheriff court — and mygov.scot suggests legal advice before doing so.
• Free help exists and is named: Govan Law Centre's education law unit, Citizens Advice Scotland, and Enquire for placement appeals.

Wales and Northern Ireland run their own systems again — gov.uk says as much and this page hasn't checked either, so don't take England's timings as read there. If you're moving within or into either, start with your new council or the Education Authority rather than an English guide. The rest of the move, including the nation-specific differences that do change your dates, is covered elsewhere on the site.

Where this sits in the plan

MovePlan puts the school task at six weeks before the move — early enough that the council conversation happens before the evidence is needed, rather than after — and keeps the current school's notice and the records transfer as their own steps. It's £14.99 once for a six-month pass, and it organises and drafts; the applying and the appealing are yours.