Guide to starting school or moving up to junior school

If we're not able to offer your child a place at your preferred school on 16 April and you still want us to, we'll try to do this in a later allocation round if places become available.

Some vacancies may be created if families decline the school offered to their child on 16 April. We have later allocation rounds to fill these places.

For your child to be considered in a later allocation round, their name must be on the waiting list for the school(s) you are interested in.

After each allocation round, we will contact you if we can offer a new school to your child. You will need to either accept or decline the offer by a given deadline.

We must take away any existing school place that your child has before we can offer a new school in a later allocation round. You will not be offered the choice between two schools. If your child is on a school’s waiting list, we assume you would prefer that school over the school your child has been offered (even if you have accepted it).

If you are happy with the school your child has been offered and do not want a different school, you must contact us to remove them from any other waiting lists.

If you live outside Buckinghamshire and your child is on the waiting list for a Buckinghamshire school, we will tell your Local Authority if we can offer a place in a later allocation round.

Other Local Authorities will tell us about any offers they can make for Buckinghamshire children. These offers will be included in our next scheduled allocation round.

Applications received between 29 June and 26 July will be processed by 2 August.

Applications received after 26 July will be allocated on an ad hoc basis.

Final waiting list positions will be confirmed to parents on 28 August.

Here are examples of the types of information we will consider in each allocation round. The deadline to provide this information is set out in the table above.

• new applications
• requests to remove a child from a waiting list
• after 22 May, changes to the schools in a child’s application
• change of address (if the required evidence has been provided and agreed by the deadline)
• evidence to support a new exceptional medical or social needs application

After 2 August 2024, we will offer any further places as they become available. There are usually very few places at this time of year.

The Independent Appeal Panel have the authority to grant places to children even if a school is full, which pushes schools over their planned admission number. So if there have been successful admission appeals for a school we will not be able to offer any places unless the number of children due to join the school in September falls below the schools Admission Number.

From the end of August, waiting lists will be passed to those schools who manage their own admissions. Waiting lists for all other schools will be part of the co-ordinated in-year admissions process.