Choosing a primary school

You need to include all your preferred schools on your application, even if you want to apply for a place at a school in another local authority area. 

If you live outside 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 five schools in your application. You should put the school you really want as number one on your list.

By law, all areas use an equal preference system. This means schools must consider all preferences for their school, without taking into consideration which order you put them. Schools never find out which order you put them in.

Example

You apply for:

• School a
• School b
• School c

Your child is added to the list for each of your three chosen schools, which are ranked according to their individual admission criteria. We then check which schools can offer a place.

If all three can, you will be allocated a place at your first choice, school a.

If only two schools can, you will be allocated a place at the one you ranked higher.

If none can, you will be allocated a place at the nearest Trafford school with availability.

Catchment areas

Most schools in Trafford have a catchment area, where resident children are given priority over other children.

Find your catchment area

We recommend you apply for your catchment area school, even as your last preference. 

If you live in the catchment area for more than one school, we recommend including them all in your list. This will not stop you from being offered a place at the school you have listed higher, but it will increase your chance of being offered a local place.

Allocation of places

Each school has a fixed number of places. 

If applications exceed the number of places available, the school is oversubscribed and applies its oversubscription criteria to decide who gets a place. This criteria is applied both during the initial allocation and also in the review process. 

These criteria are outlined in each school’s admission policy. Read the admissions policies for Trafford schools.