Families encouraged to complete secondary school place applications

Parents across Leeds are being reminded to get their applications in for their child’s secondary school place for next September.

Although it is only early in the summer holidays, families with children starting secondary school in September 2017 were able to start applying for their child’s school place from 1 August.

Parents and carers are being encouraged to visit Leeds City Council’s website – www.leeds.gov.uk to complete an online application for their child’s secondary school place, before the closing date of 31 October 2016. For those applying online, offers will be emailed on 1 March 2017.

Councillor Lisa Mulherin, executive member responsible for children and families, said:

“Deciding which school is best for your child is an important decision and, with so many good schools in Leeds, is not an easy one to make. A lot of work has gone into making the admissions process as straight forward as possible and the online form is quick and easy to fill in. The online application process is easy and secure, and the quickest way to receive your child’s offer.

“It is very important that families list five schools they wish their children to attend – in order of preference, to give them the best chance of attending a preferred school. We also strongly advise parents to include their priority school to maximise their chances of getting a local place.”

To help parents and carers make their preferences, a range of information is available both directly from schools and from the council. Schools will provide information about their own admissions policy, transport and uniform information. The admissions pages of the council website provides details about previous allocation rounds including maps showing furthest allocation distances, links to OfSTED reports and information and links to each school as well as further details about admissions policies. This information is provided to help parents to submit preferences for schools where they have a realistic chance of being offered a place. To help parents make an informed choice about which schools to preference, there is a wide variety of data available www.leedsdatamill.org, including data on previous years’ allocations.

To find out their priority school or for any other help and advice parents can call the admissions team on 0113 222 4414.

Parents are also reminded that they must apply for a school place using the address where their child lives for the majority of the time.

Increasing pupil numbers across the city will start to have an effect on secondary school places by 2018. The council’s school places team is already hard at work negotiating with existing schools and other providers to develop solutions to ensure there are enough good quality school places in the right areas.