Halton Local Authority's Admissions

Application to Secondary 2025

Applications are now open online for parents/carers of children in Year 6 wishing to make an application for their child to start Secondary School in September 2025.

The deadline for Secondary 2025 applications is ​31^st October 2024. Don’t be late as this is likely to reduce your chances of being offered a place at your three preferred schools.

For information regarding secondary schools in Halton and their admissions policies, please take a look at the Admission to Secondary School 2025 Booklet before making an application.

If you are unable to apply online please email schooladmissions@halton.gov.uk for a paper application form, or these can also be collected from any Halton Direct Link Office.

You may also find the following documents useful when preparing your application:

• Myths about Secondary School applications
• Secondary 2024 Summary​

Application to Primary 2025

Applications are now open online for parents/carers of children born between 01/09/2020 and 31/08/2021 wishing to make an application for their child to start Primary School in September 2025.

The deadline for Primary 2025 applications is ​​15^th January 2025. Don’t be late as this is likely to reduce your chances of being offered a place at your three preferred schools

For information regarding primary schools in Halton and their admissions policies, please take a look at the Admission to Primary School 2025 Booklet before making an application.

If you are unable to apply online please email schooladmissions@halton.gov.uk for a paper application form, or these can also be collected from any Halton Direct Link Office.

You may also find the following documents useful when preparing your application:

• Myths about Primary School applications
• Primary 2024 Summary

Late Application to Primary or Secondary School September 2024

If you have not yet applied for your child, or need to make a change of preference, for the current Reception class or Year 7 between September 2024 and 31^st December 2024, please email schooladmissions@halton.gov.uk for the application forms and a list of current vacancies.​

Requests to educate outside of normal age group​

For parents of summer-born children (those born between April 1st and August 31st), wishing to make a formal request to educate their child outside of their normal age group (i.e. they start Reception class in 2026 instead of 2025), please complete and return this Defer Primary Application form to schooladmissions@halton.gov.uk before the deadline of 15th January 2025. You should read the DfE guidance Summer Born Children: Starting School – Advice for Parents before making your decision.

Your preference school(s) will be contacted and a decision will be made in the best interests of the child at the earliest opportunity.​​

HALTON BOROUGH COUNCIL DETERMINED ADMISSION ARRANGEMENTS AND COORDINATED SCHEMES FOR THE SEPTEMBER 2025 INTAKE

Following consultation, the Council’s Executive Board at the meeting held on 18th January 2024 determined the admission arrangements for community and voluntary controlled schools in Halton, and the Coordinated Schemes for both Primary and Secondary schools for the September 2025 intake which apply to all primary and secondary schools in Halton.

• Primary Scheme
  
• Secondary Scheme
  

Should you wish to object to the arrangements, objections must be made to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator by 15th May 2024. A link to the OSA website is here: Office of the Schools Adjudicator.​

Statutory Consultation – September 2026 School Admissions Intake 

As statutorily required. The LA is consulting on its proposed admissions criteria for community and voluntary controlled schools for the September 2026 intake, together with the Proposed Coordinated Admissions Schemes for both Primary intakes and Secondary Intakes for the September 2026 admissions round.  The coordinated schemes, following consultation and approval by the Council’s Executive Board, will then apply to all Halton schools (community, voluntary controlled, voluntary aided, and academy schools) for the September 2026 intake.  Please be aware that own authority schools (voluntary aided and academy schools) may also be consulting on their own admissions arrangements for the September 2026 intake, so please visit the school’s own website for those arrangements.

If you wish to comment on the consultation, please submit your response to schooladmissions@halton.gov.uk by no later than 5pm on Tuesday 12^th November 2024.  You will not receive an individual response to your consultation response.

• Primary Co-ordinated Admissions Scheme
• Secondary Co-ordinated Admissions Scheme​​​​

Halton LA Report to the Schools Adjudicator​​​

• Halton Local Authority’s Annual Report to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator 2020. Office of the Schools Adjudicator annual report is also available.
  
• Halton Local Authority’s Annual Report to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator 2021.
• Halton Local Authority’s Annual Report to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator 2022.

School Place Planning Strategy

• School Place Planning Strategy 2023-2028

Data Protection

Halton Borough Council is the Data Controller for the personal information you provide.

We collect and hold information about you in order to process your school admissions request, including applications to primary, junior and secondary schools, in-year transfer applications and school admissions appeals.

For further information regarding data protection please visit our Data Protection and FOI web page