How we allocate secondary school places

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 so our admissions criteria apply.

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 secondary schools use our admissions criteria.

These include:

  • Eltham Hill School
  • Plumstead Manor School
  • Thomas Tallis School

Top priority

We give top priority to children who have an education, health and care plan (EHCP) naming 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 in our care, or the care of another local authority, or have been in the past.
  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.

View our full school admissions arrangements for 2025 to 2026:

Royal Greenwich determined admissions arrangements 2025 to 2026
PDF ‐ 287.17 KB

Other secondary schools admissions criteria

You can find admissions criteria and supplementary forms on each school’s website:

More information

View our secondary school offers map to see where schools made offers last year