School admissions process

Waiting lists

Your child's name will automatically be placed on the waiting list for any school which was a higher preference on your application form than the school you have been offered. If you need to find out your child's position on the waiting list, contact the admission authority or the borough in which the school is situated after 21 April 2025 for secondary schools and after 20 May 2025 for primary schools.

Secondary schools in Croydon are their own admission authority and maintain their own waiting list. Croydon council maintains waiting lists for the majority of primary schools with the exception of voluntary aided schools.

Important information

Requests to be added to the waiting list for lower preference schools when an offer of a first preference school has been made will only be allowed in exceptional circumstances and these must be supported with relevant evidence. Requests to be considered for lower preference schools can be made through the in-year application process from September 2025.

We will be closing all waiting lists on 31 December 2025. After this date, if you wish your child to remain on the waiting list for any of your preferred schools, you must reapply by completing an in-year application form.

Late applications

Primary schools

If you submit an application or change your existing preferences, or order of preferences, after 15 January 2025, without good reason for doing so, the whole application will be treated as late, and this may jeopardise the possibility of your child being offered a place at one of your preferred schools.

Applications which are late for no good reason and those that are received after 12 February 2025 but before 16 April 2025 will not be considered in the initial allocation round but will be allocated available places after all on-time preferences have been processed. Where a place cannot be offered at a preferred school, your child will be offered the nearest school to your normal place of residence (the application address), with readily available places.

We will accept late applications within the coordinated process only if they are late for a good reason. Examples of what will be considered as good reason include: when a parent with no support has been ill for some time, or has been dealing with the death of a close relative; a family has just moved into the area or is returning from abroad (proof of ownership or tenancy of a property within this local authority will be required in these cases). Other circumstances will be considered and each case decided on its own merits.

The latest date that an application that is late for good reason can be accepted for a Croydon resident will be 12 February 2025.

Secondary schools

If you submit an application or change your existing preferences, or order of preferences, after 31 October 2024 but before 12 December 2024 without good reason for doing so, the whole application will be treated as late, and this may jeopardise the possibility of your child being offered a place at one of your preferred schools.

Applications which are late for no good reason and those that are received after 12 December 2024 but before 3 March 2025 will not be considered in the initial allocation round but will be allocated available places after all on-time preferences have been processed. Where a place cannot be offered at a preferred school, your child will be offered the nearest school to your normal place of residence (the application address), with readily available places.

The latest date that an application that is late for good reason can be accepted for a Croydon resident will be 12 December 2024.