Primary application guidance

If you live in Trafford and your child will start in reception year in September 2024, you must apply to Trafford for your school place. 

You need to include all your preferred schools on the application to Trafford, even if you want to apply for a place at a school in another local authority area. We co-ordinate applications for all Trafford residents and work together with other areas as required.

If you live outside of Trafford, you will receive information from the area where you live.

Children will only receive an offer of a place at one school.

Preferences

You can choose up to 5 schools and you should choose the school you really want first. By law, all areas use an equal preference system. This means schools must consider all preferences expressed for their school, without taking into consideration which order you put them in.

Schools never find out whether they were your first, second, third, fourth or fifth preference. All your preferences are considered equally, and a place will be offered at your highest preference possible, where places allow.

Example

You apply for

  1. Tyntesfield Primary School
  2. St Margaret Ward Catholic Primary School
  3. Woodheys Primary School

Your child’s name is placed on the list for each of the 3 schools. The lists are sorted into order based on each school’s admission criteria. We look at the lists and see which of your preferred schools can offer you a place.

If all 3 can offer a place, we will allocate your first choice school, Tyntesfield Primary School. If only 2 schools can offer you a place, we will allocate a place at your highest preference of the 2 schools. If none of your chosen schools can offer a place, we will allocate a place at the nearest school in Trafford with a vacancy.

Catchment areas

Community schools and some academies have a catchment area, where resident children are given priority over other children.

Faith schools also have a catchment area, usually based on parishes, and priority will be given to children that meet the faith criteria. Details of the catchment areas for faith schools are available directly from the schools.

You can apply for any school you like, in any order, regardless of where you live. However, you must remember that people in a catchment area will often be given a higher priority.

A few schools share an area with a neighbouring community school. If you live in one of these shared areas then you are considered as being in the catchment area for both schools.

You are advised to apply for your catchment area school, even if it is as your last preference. If you live in the catchment area for more than one school, you are advised to include them all in your list of preferences. This will not stop you being offered a place at another school you have listed higher. It does mean you have the best chance of being offered a local place.

Submitting an application

To start your application, go to our parent portal. You must complete a short registration process and will be sent a code to verify your email. Enter the code to complete your registration.

Within the online application:

  • To select a school in Trafford, start to type the school name in the box provided.
  • To select a school in another area, use the ‘search for school outside local authority’ function.

You can submit a reason for your preference for a particular school. We can only allocate places in line with the oversubscription criteria for each school and so your reason should relate to the criteria for that school.

If you do not have access to the internet contact us on 0161 912 5007.

Confirmation email

Once you have submitted your online application you will receive an email to confirm your application has been received. If you do not receive this email, your application has not been received and you should email us at school.admissions@trafford.gov.uk or call 0161 912 5007..

Late applications

It is the parent or carer's responsibility to make sure you apply by the deadline date. Applications received after 15 January 2024 are late applications. This means they will only be considered after all on time applications have been processed.

Changing an application

Changes up to 15 January 2024 - you can log into your online account at any time and make a change to your application.

Changes after 15 January 2024 – we will only consider these after all the on-time applications and changes have been considered. We will use the last application you submitted by the deadline date.

If more than one aplication is received for a child, we will only consider the last application received.

Home address

A child’s home address is where they normally and permanently live on a full time basis. It cannot be the address of a grandparent, other relative or childminder.

If parents are separated, Trafford must decide how the application will be considered. If this is not defined in an individual school’s admission policy, then Trafford will apply their policy.

Trafford’s policy states if parents are separated, the application will be considered from the address where the child lives, even though the child may regularly spend some time at another address. Where it is claimed that the child’s residency is shared equally between two addresses, parents may decide which address will be used for the application.

Fraudulent or misleading applications

We assume the information you provide on your application will be factually correct. Any attempt to undermine the fairness of the school admissions system by providing false information is taken very seriously. We will always investigate possible fraudulent applications.

If we find out that a place we offered was based on a fraudulent or misleading information, for example a false claim to be living at an address, the place may be withdrawn and offered to another chid. A place may also be withdrawn even after your child has started school.

Changing your address

You must inform us immediately if you change your address at any point before starting school in September as this may change your child's priority for a particular school. If you move home, your application will be reviewed and as a result, any offer of a place may be withdrawn. Failure to report a change of address may be considered as a misleading application.

If you change address by 15 January and have submitted an on time application, it will be considered from the new address. However, if you do not submit an on time application, it will only be considered after all applications received by 15 January have been processed.

If you change address after the 15 January 2024, your application will be considered from your previous address until the initial allocation of places is completed on 16 April 2024.

If you are not offered a place for your child at your preferred school, you can then apply for vacancies in the review process which takes place after 16 April 2024. This will be subject to checks for proof of residency and the effective disposal of your previous property.

Deferred entry

You can choose to defer the date your child starts reception class until later in the school year, or to attend part time, up to the point they reach compulosry school age. This cannot be beyond the final term of the school year for which the application was made. 

Admission of summer born children

In a very few circumstances, a parent may feel that their summer born child is not ready to begin school before their fifth birthday. In this case, where a child is born between 1 April and 31 August a parent can request that their child’s admission to school is delayed, so that the child is admitted into the reception class, out of their normal age group, at the point at which other children in their age range are beginning Year 1.

Parents will be required to submit an on time application and to approach all the preferred schools to discuss their child’s circumstances, by 15 January. 

Each school will complete a Delayed Entry Request Form with the parent. Each school will consider the information provided and complete the Decision Outcome Section of the Delayed Entry Request Form.

A Decision Panel will be constituted. The Panel will include at least 3 headteachers; this will be the headteachers from all the preferred schools and any other nominated headteachers and 2 officers from Trafford’s Primary Team.

The Panel will consider the decision outcomes from the relevant schools and a final decision will be agreed. All schools participating in the Scheme will abide by the final decision of the Panel.

Parents will be advised of the outcome of their request by 16 April. Where the request is agreed, the application for the normal age group will be withdrawn and no place will be offered.

If the request is refused, the parent will receive the offer of a school place for admission to the normal age group on 16 April.

The parent must decide whether to accept the offered place, and may choose to defer admission until later in the reception year, or to refuse it and make an in year application for admission to year one in the September following the child’s fifth birthday.

Where a request is agreed, this is an agreement in principle and does not reserve a place or guarantee that the child will be allocated a place at a preferred school in the next admission round. Therefore, where a parent’s request is agreed, they must make a new application as part of the main admissions round the following year.

That application will be considered, alongside all the other applications received for admission that year, according to the published oversubscription criteria.

Where a place cannot be allocated at any of the preferred schools, a place will be allocated at the nearest participating school with a vacancy. Again, the parent must decide whether to accept the offered place, and may choose to make an in year application for admission to year one at a preferred school.

Parents who are refused a place at a school for admission to the normal age group, have the right of appeal to an independent appeal panel. They do not have a right of appeal if they have been offered a place that is not in the year group they would like. However, they may make a complaint.

In the case of schools participating in the Scheme they should complain through Trafford’s complaints procedure. For all other schools or academies, parents should make a complaint under the school’s complaints procedure.

All Trafford schools participate in the Trafford’s Scheme. Although it is the case that one admission authority cannot be required to honour a decision made by another admission authority, all participating schools agree to abide by the decision of the Panel and will consider the delayed entry application if required, in accordance with the published oversubscription criteria, for admission in the next admission round.

Children of UK service personnel and crown servants

For families of service personnel (UK armed forces) with a confirmed posting to Trafford, or crown servants returning to live in Trafford from overseas, a school place can be allocated in advance of you arriving into the area.

Your application must be accompanied by an official letter that declares a relocation date, together with evidence of your address. If a preferred school is oversubscribed, the advised address will be used when considering the application against the oversubscription criteria.

How we use your data

Find out more about how we use your data in the school admissions service privacy notice.

Apply for a place

All applications are to be made through the Trafford application portal:

Apply for a school place