Changing or transferring to a Swindon school

You make an "in-year" application for your child to attend a Swindon school unless they:

This means an "in-year" application is necessary when your child is:

  • leaving a school in Swindon to go to a different school
  • moving to a school in Swindon from a school that’s outside Swindon

If your child is moving from a Swindon school to attend school outside Swindon, you should contact the relevant council about making your application. You can use an online tool to check which council area you will live in.

Depending on your or your child’s circumstances, there are many things you should think about before making an in-year application.

How the application works

As a local authority, we co-ordinate all applications made during the academic year for all year groups for all schools in Swindon. This includes all schools that we, as a local authority, do not actually manage.

You can make an in-year application online.

You get to choose three schools in order of preference. We will work with the relevant admitting authority with the aim of offering your child a place at one of the schools you’ve stated.

All preferences are treated equally, so we will offer the highest preference whenever possible.

We allocate in-year transfers every 15 school days.

We consider in-year applications in “process periods” depending on the term calendar. An application made in any given process period is not prioritised by the date we receive it.

The timetable of process periods is below.

There is an offer date associated with each process period. This is the day that we e-mail parents with an offer of a school place, or inform them that their application was not successful. 

Once you have received your offer letter, you should contact the school to accept the place and agree a start date. You must accept the place within 28 school days of the offer.

Process period for the 2023/24 school year

Process period Open date (when you can apply)  Closing date (online applications must be submitted by 12 noon) Parents notified (day offers are emailed)
1 14 July 2023 5 September 2023 14 September 2023
2 6 September 2023 14 September 2023 25 September 2023
3 15 September 2023 26 September 2023 3 October 2023
4 27 September 2023 9 October 2023 17 October 2023
5 10 October 2023 1 November 2023 13 November 2023
6 2 November 2023 14 November 2023 23 November 2023
7 15 November 2023 28 November 2023 6 December 2023
8 29 November 2023 11 December 2023 18 December 2023
9 12 December 2023 3 January 2024 10 January 2024
10 04 January 2024 15 January 2024 24 January 2024
11 16 January 2024 25 January 2024 2 February 2024
12 26 January 2024 1 February 2024 9 February 2024
13 2 February 2024 29 February 2024 28 February 2024
14 10 February 2024 5 March 2024 14 March 2024
15 6 March 2024 18 March 2024 26 March 2024
16 19 March 2024 11 April 2024 22 April 2024
17 12 April 2024 24 April 2024 3 May 2024
18 25 April 2024 7 May 2024 15 May 2024
19 8 May 2024 16 May 2024 23 May 2024
20 17 May 2024 4 June 2024 13 June 2024
21 5 June 2024 17 June 2024 24 June 2024
22 18 June 2024 26 June 2024 5 July 2024
23 27 June 2024 8 July 2024 17 July 2024
24 9 July 2024 18 July 2024 24 July 2024

If your application is not successful

If we cannot offer your child a place at one of your preferred schools and they do not already attend a Swindon school, we will offer a place at the nearest school that has availability. This is assuming you have provided evidence of your Swindon address.

You can be added to the waiting list for a preferred school, if the school has one. A school’s waiting list policy is held in its oversubscription criteria. Your child may move up or down the list as other children are added and removed. No priority is given according to the amount of time your child spends on the list.

For community schools and voluntary controlled schools, the waiting list is held until the end of the academic year. If you wish to remain on the waiting list for the following year, you must make another application in that academic year.

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