Secondary school places

Applications for Year 7 in September 2023

If you applied for a secondary school place for September 2023, you will receive an email with the outcome of your application by 11am on Wednesday 1 March. The email will contain a link to log in to your portal account to accept your offer or apply for the waiting lists. 

Accepting or declining the offer 

You are strongly advised to accept the offer you receive on 1 March. This means you can always be sure you have a school place. If you accept the offer we have made, it does not stop you joining a waiting list or submitting an appeal for another school. 

If you decline the place you have been offered, and your appeals are unsuccessful, we will only be able to offer you a place at a school which is undersubscribed. These are currently Broadoak School in Partington, Lostock High School in Stretford and Wellacre Academy in Flixton.

If you want to decline the offer because you have made other arrangements, such as attending an independent school or choosing to home educate, you can tell us this in the portal. 

Waiting lists

If you have been refused admission to a preferred school you can add your child’s name to the waiting lists via the portal. If you want to add a school that you have not previously applied for, or that was listed as a lower preference than your allocated school, you should email us and we will do this for you. Waiting lists are not run on a first come first served basis. Waiting lists must be run until the end of December. Places must be allocated in line with the oversubscription criteria for that school.

Your right to appeal

Admission authorities must offer the parent’s preferred school whenever possible but this can only be done when there are enough places for everyone. Where the number of applications received are more than the number places available at a school, then the oversubscription criteria must be applied. This may mean that all of the available places are offered to applicants with a higher priority than your child. This is the only reason your application can be refused. If this happens, you have the right to appeal to an independent appeal panel.

Get more detailed information about secondary school admission appeals.

Additional guidance for the area where you live

This advice was provided to applicants as part of the application process, by post to their home address and as part of the online application process. It is most important for residents in the Altrincham and Sale areas where all schools are significantly oversubscribed and it is frequently the case that some catchment area children do not achieve places in their preferred schools. We strongly advised you to carefully read this advice and follow it.

Late applications

The closing date for secondary school applications was 31 October 2022. If you missed this deadline for any reason, you can still submit an application. Any application received, or change made, after 31 October is classed as a late application. This means it will only be considered after all the applications received on time have been processed. Late applications will be considered in line with the published admission arrangements and with regard to the number of available places.

Applications for now (any year group)

An in-year application is when a child applies to transfer from one school to another, during the school year. This includes families who have recently moved into Trafford from another area. 

All in-year applications should be made through the Trafford application portal:

Trafford is the admission authority for one secondary school, Lostock High School. The admission authority for every other secondary school in Trafford is either the academy trust or the governing body of the school. These own admission authority schools are responsible for their own admissions. We will forward your application details to the individual schools for processing and it is the school that will advise you of the outcome.

Further information

Contact us

 

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