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 2022/23 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 9 July 2022 5 September 2022 15 September 2022
2 6 September 2022 15 September 2022 22 September 2022
3 16 September 2022 21 September 2021 29 September 2022
4 22 September 2022 7 October 2022 14 October 2022
5 5 October 2022 18 October 2022 04 November 2022
6 19 October 2022 7 November 2022 16 November 2022
7 8 November 2022 17 November 2022 25 November 2022
8 18 November 2022 28 November 2022 7 December 2022
9 29 November 2022 8 December 2022 19 December 2022
10 9 December 2022 16 December 2022 11 January 2023
11 17 December 2022 12 January 2023 23 January 2023
12 13 January 2023 24 January 2023 2 February 2023
13 25 January 2023 6 February 2023 22 February 2023
14 7 February 2023 22 February 2023 6 March 2023
15 23 February 2023 7 March 2023 15 March 2023
16 8 March 2023 21 March 2023 28 March 2023
17 22 March 2023 13 April 2023 25 April 2023
18 14 April 2023 26 April 2023 5 May 2023
19 27 April 2023 3 May 2023 15 May 2023
20 4 May 2023 15 May 2023 25 May 2023
21 16 May 2023 25 May 2023 12 June 2023
22 26 May 2023 13 June 2023 22 June 2023
23 23 June 2023 4 July 2023 13 July 2023
24 5 July 2023 13 July 2023 24 July 2023

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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