Applying for a Secondary School Place When You Home Educate

How the application works when your child is not at school

Secondary applications in England do not go through a primary school. They go through the local authority you live in, which the School Admissions Code calls your home authority. The Code requires the form to be returned to the council for the area where you live, and the offer of a place comes back from that same council. A primary school can pass reminders along for its own pupils, but it plays no formal part in anyone's application, so a home-educated child skips nothing by not being on a school roll.

The council's common application form lets you name at least three state-funded schools, in order of preference, and they can be in any council's area, not just your own. The Code is also specific about what the form may ask for: your name and address, and your child's name, address and date of birth. It does not require a current school, and the Code says outright that the child must not be required to complete any part of the form.

Nor can home education be held against the application. The Code prohibits admission authorities from placing any condition on an application beyond their published oversubscription criteria, and from taking into account any previous schools attended, except a named feeder school. A child educated at home is considered on the same published criteria (distance, siblings and so on) as everyone else.

1. Find your own council's admissions page: gov.uk's apply for a secondary school place service routes you there from your postcode.
2. Apply online through that council from when its round opens (see the dates below). Most councils also offer a paper form on request.
3. Name your preferred schools in your genuine order of preference. The Code bans first preference first arrangements: schools cannot give priority according to where parents ranked them, so putting a popular school first does not harm your chances at the others.
4. Submit by 31 October. You will hear back on National Offer Day, 1 March.

One honest note on that third step: how councils co-ordinate preferences is set nationally, but each council publishes its own scheme and its own guidance booklet, the composite prospectus, and it is worth reading yours, because oversubscription criteria differ school by school.

The dates that matter this autumn

Three dates in the secondary round are fixed nationally by the School Admissions Code. The opening date is set locally: your council chooses its own, usually early to mid September, so check your council's page rather than a national one.

The closing date is worth quoting exactly, because the main gov.uk application pages do not carry it. The Code states: "The deadlines for submitting applications to be allocated on National Offer Day are 31 October for secondary school and 15 January for primary school." That sentence is not tied to any particular year: 31 October is the deadline every year, for entry the following September.

So for a child starting Year 7 in September 2027, the application window runs this autumn: your council opens it in roughly early September 2026, and it closes on 31 October 2026.

Applying does not end your home education

This is the worry that stops some families applying at all, so it deserves a precise answer. Your legal duty as a parent sits in section 7 of the Education Act 1996: to ensure your child receives efficient full-time education suitable to their age, ability and aptitude, either by regular attendance at school or otherwise. Home education is the otherwise, and submitting an application form changes none of it.

An application is a request for an offer, nothing more. Your child does not join a school roll when you apply, and does not join one when a place is offered on 1 March. School attendance duties attach to a child who is a registered pupil at a school, and registration happens when your child is admitted, after you have accepted the offer and a start date arrives. Until then you are home educating exactly as before, and if you decline the offer or never take it up, that remains true afterwards too.

The Department for Education's own guidance for home-educating parents confirms the wider point: any parent living in England can ask for a state-funded school place, and the local authority is obliged to find one or arrange education another way. Asking is an option you always hold — using it costs you nothing you currently have.

The one genuine cost to weigh is on the other side: a place you decline is not held for you. If you change your mind later, you would apply in-year, and the school you were once offered may by then be full.

Grammar schools and selection tests

If any of your preferred schools selects by ability, there is an extra step, and its timing catches home-educating families out because no primary school is prompting anyone. The test is registered for and sat before the 31 October deadline. The Code requires selective schools to tell you the outcome before the closing date, precisely so you can decide whether to name the school with your eyes open.

Registration for the test is separate from the council application, runs on the school's or selection area's own timetable, and often closes months earlier. If a selective school is on your list, go to that school's own admissions page now and find two dates: the deadline to register for the test, and the test date itself. Home-educated children sit the same test, so contact the school in good time about where your child sits it and about any access arrangements.

If you miss 31 October

A late application is still an application. The Code defines late applications as ones submitted before the first day of the admission year's first term but too late for an offer on National Offer Day. Parents who apply late still apply to their council and still receive an offer from it.

What the Code does not set is how a late application ranks against the on-time ones. That lives in each council's own co-ordinated scheme, and schemes differ: many consider late applications only after every on-time application, which in practice means the most popular schools may already be full. Check your own council's scheme rather than assuming either way.

The practical reading is simple: 31 October is not a cliff edge after which nothing is possible, but applying on time keeps every school on your list in play, and applying costs nothing. If you are unsure whether you want a place at all, apply anyway and decide in March with an offer in hand.

Does the 2026 Act change any of this?

Not yet, and not on this subject. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 will eventually change how home education is recorded and, in defined cases, how children are withdrawn from school. Its children-not-in-school sections had not been brought into force in England when this page was checked on 21 August 2026, and nothing in them touches the secondary application route described here: applying stays a council process, open to any family resident in England.

The Act's register provisions move on their own timetable, and we track them on a dedicated page, do I need to register to home educate in England?, rather than repeating the detail here. If you are reading this long after autumn 2026, check that page first. This one describes the position at the date beneath its title.