Admissions Calculator
The admissions calculator is not available yet. It is meant to set the admission criteria of a school you are considering against your own circumstances: whether your child is in care or was adopted from care, has a brother or sister at the school, lives inside a catchment boundary, meets a faith criterion, or would need to pass an entrance test.
What it cannot do is promise a place. Each school's admission authority applies its own criteria, and only when more children apply than there are places. How far away the last place went depends on who applies in your year, so it changes every year, and we do not hold those figures. Your council's admissions booklet does, for recent years.
Until the calculator is ready, the distance checker measures how far your home is from each nearby school, and every school page says who sets its criteria and when to apply. Check your distance to a school.
Questions about school admissions
Can any tool tell me whether my child will get a place?
No. Only the school's admission authority decides, after the closing date, once it knows who has applied. A tool can show how the published criteria would rank your child, but the result depends on the other children who apply that year.
What decides who gets a place at an oversubscribed school?
The school's admission criteria, in the order it publishes them. Children in care or adopted from care come first by law. Most schools then put brothers and sisters of current pupils, then distance from home or a catchment boundary. Faith schools can give priority on grounds of religion, and grammar schools admit by an entrance test.
Where can I find how far away places went last year?
In your council's admissions booklet, which most councils publish online with each school's offers from recent years. Some schools also publish their own figures alongside their admission arrangements.
When do I need to apply?
In England, by 31 October in your child's Year 6 for a secondary school place, and by 15 January for a Reception place. Offers are sent on 1 March for secondary and 16 April for primary, or the next working day. Key dates and how places are given.