When do parents find out about primary-school places?

Offers for primary school places for children in England and Wales are being sent out.

It is often a time of anxious waiting for parents and caregivers.

Primary school offers are usually made on April 16 in England and Wales.

But because of the bank holiday weekend, councils are sending out offer letters on Tuesday 19 April.

Letters to parents and carers will be issued in Northern Ireland on April 28th.

No offers are made in Scotland as councils decide where to place children.

Some municipalities send confirmation letters in the year before the child reaches primary school age.

Others require parents and carers to enroll their child in school.

Letters of offer sent in England should include a time limit for acceptance of the offer.

If this is not done, the offer can be withdrawn and the place can be given to someone else.

If your child does not have a place at the school you want, you can contact your local authority to find out which schools have places.

You can also put your child’s name on waiting lists for other schools – and those lists must be open for at least the first trimester of each school year.

If you receive an offer from a school after you are on the waiting list, you can accept it even if your child has started at a different school.

In Wales, offer letters should include a start date.

And any child who doesn’t get a place at the school their parents applied for will be placed on a waiting list.

In Northern Ireland, if your child is not offered a place at the school you want, you will be asked to select a new preference from a list of schools that have places available.

In Scotland, your council decides your child’s school in your local catchment area.

You can ask to choose another school outside of your local area and the municipality must allow this if there is space – but this is not guaranteed.

If your child is not admitted to the desired school, you can appeal the decision.

In England and Wales, the final decision is made by an independent panel that attends a hearing.

During the hearing, the council or school will explain why they rejected the application, and you can support your child’s admission.

The panel will then make its decision, which will be communicated to you within five school days.

Official figures for England show that 91.8% of applicants in 2021 were offered the school they indicated as their first preference.

They also show that 11,239 appeals (1.4% of new admissions) to primary school places for the 2020-21 school year were heard.

Of these, 1,823 (16.2%) were successful.

In Northern Ireland these bodies are called tribunals.

In Scotland, councils have their own rules of appeal.