Apply for a primary school place

If a school receives more applications than they have places available, their admissions authority applies a set of criteria to decide which applicants receive an offer.

We’re the admissions authority for community schools. Our admissions criteria apply to them all.

Individual school governing bodies are the admissions authority for academies, free schools and voluntary-aided faith schools. They each have their own admissions criteria.

Before applying, we recommend you check the admission criteria for school’s you want to apply for.

Our admissions criteria

All community schools use our admissions criteria.

Top priority

We give top priority to children who have an education, health and care plan (EHCP) that names the school they should attend.

Other priorities

We allocate the remaining places using the following criteria, which are listed in priority order.

1. Children who are, or were, in our care, or the care of another local authority.
2. Children who need to attend a particular school because they, or a member of their immediate family, have a chronic medical or social care need.
3. Children who live with a brother or sister who attends the school and will continue to attend when they’re admitted.
4. Children of staff at the school.
5. Children who live nearest to the school.

Primary school admissions arrangements

These documents contain full details of our school admission arrangements: