Primary school admissions

For children born between 1 September 2020 and 31 August 2021, their parents or carers must apply for them to start an Infant or primary school (reception class) in September 2025. The closing date is 15 January 2025.

For information about applying for any other year groups in a primary, infant or junior school, go to our In year admissions page.

Starting reception in an infant or primary school

Every family must apply to their home borough. This means if a family live in Newham they must apply through Newham Council even if their child attends a nursery outside of Newham or they only want to apply for reception place in another borough. All London boroughs and some of the councils surrounding London work together to make the application process easier for parents. The councils follow the Pan London coordinated scheme 2025/26 scheme (available soon) to pass information to each other.

Remember, parents/carers must apply for a place, even if:

• They want their child to go to the local school.

 Or

• Their child has an older brother or sister at the school.

           Or

• They want their child to start reception in the school where they are attending nursery.

The law does not allow us to reserve reception places.

What you need to do

• Read and make sure you understand the admissions process. This information is available in our e-booklet 'Starting school 2025 (PDF)'.
• Read all the information about all the schools you are thinking about as well as your local schools. Don’t focus on Ofsted reports and league tables as these can be out of date.
• Make sure you read each schools admission criteria.  The admission criteria are the rules that schools use to decide which applications to accept and which to turn down if they are over-subscribed (that is, when they receive more applications than there are spaces at the school).
• Find out if there are any extra forms called supplementary information forms (SIF) that your preferred schools need.  If so, send these forms and documents they ask for direct to the schools or local authorities before the closing date.
• Use all your 6 preferences and list (rank) the schools in the order you like best.  School number 1 is the one you want the most, then school 2, then school 3 and so on.
• Fill in and submit the online common application form by the closing date. Do not leave it until the last day to apply.
• If your application is late, you are less likely to get a place at the school you prefer.

Moving from an infant to a junior school - September 2025

If your child attends an infant school and was born between 1 September 2017 and 31 August 2018, they will start their junior school in September 2025. However, this is not an automatic move and you will have to apply for your child’s junior school place. The process for junior school places in 2025, is the same as the reception places so please follow the reception information on the next few pages for your child’s junior school place. The closing date is 15 January 2025.