Places for secondary schools are offered on 1 March 2024.
If you applied online, you will receive an email on the evening of 1 March. After you’ve received the email, login to the e-admissions website to view the outcome. You can accept an offered place online.
If you applied by paper form, you will receive an email to let you know the outcome. You can reply by email to respond to the offer. Applicants who use a paper form and we do not hold a valid email address, will be posted a letter to their home.
All Sutton secondary schools are their own admissions authority and rank their own applications. Therefore, you will have to contact the schools for further information about how your application was ranked and how places were allocated.
Once an offer is accepted, schools will contact you in due course, regarding admissions arrangements.
If you've been offered a place at your first preference school
The place will automatically be accepted. Reply by 15 March to let us know if you are rejecting the school place and let us know what arrangements you are making for education.
If you’ve been offered a place that wasn't your first preference
Reply by 15 March to let us know whether you are accepting or rejecting the school place.
Your child will be added to the waiting lists of all higher preference schools.
If you applied online, update your online application. If you received a letter or email, return the reply slip or reply to the email with your response.
If you don't reply, the offer may be withdrawn and offered to another child. If you decline the offer of a school place, it becomes your responsibility to secure an alternative school.
Unless you already have an offer at an alternative school, we advise you to accept the offer that you have received until you get one at a school you prefer. Accepting an offer for a school that you might not want does not affect your child’s waiting list position. It also doesn't affect any appeal you might make for a school you prefer.
If you’ve been offered a school place you didn’t apply for
If your child wasn't eligible for any of the schools you applied for, we're required to offer schools that still have vacancies. We call these 'Central Offers'. If you have received an offer for a school that you did not apply for, the Local Authority has met its statutory responsibility for your child.
This could include schools that are further away than the schools you applied for.
Your child will also automatically be added to the waiting list for each of the preference schools on your application form.
We advise you to accept the school place you've been offered. You can then wait to see if you receive an offer at one of your preferred schools. You will still have the right of appeal.
If there are other schools that you wish to apply for, you can do so by emailing suttonadmissions@cognus.org.uk with a full revised preference order.
If you want to be considered for a place at another school, it’s important that you act quickly to be added to their waiting list. If you don't, your child may miss out on an offer that they might be eligible for.
Many schools allocate places on distance. We would encourage you to put your child's name on the waiting lists of nearby schools, which you may have been eligible for under distance criteria originally.
If you’ve not been offered a school
Unfortunately, it is not always possible to offer every Sutton child a place at a school that they listed as a preference on their application form.
This is because there were more applications than places available and other applicants had higher priority for a place under each school’s published admission criteria.
Sutton Council has a legal duty to ensure that a place is available for every Sutton child. If you have not yet been offered a school, we will continue to monitor your application to make sure that your child is offered a school place.
However, this may be at a school that you did not apply for and may not be in the London Borough of Sutton.
You should add further schools to your application now. You are no longer limited to six preferences which means you can add more schools without affecting your waiting list positions. You can do so by emailing suttonadmissions@cognus.org.uk with a full revised preference order.
Waiting lists
When a higher preference school has not been able to offer a place, your child has been added to the waiting list, if they are eligible.
There is no guarantee that a place will become available from the waiting list at one of the schools you initially applied for.
To apply for additional schools, you should email suttonadmissions@cognus.org.uk with your full revised preference order. You should do this by the 15 March.
Applying for other schools and accepting offers won't affect your child's position on the waiting list of the schools you prefer.
You can find out how your child can travel on public transport to schools further away using the journey planner on Google Maps. The Department of Education guidelines indicate that the maximum journey time that a child of secondary school age can be expected to travel to school is 75 minutes each way.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1 March 2024 | National offer day |
| 15 March 2024 | Response deadlines |
| After 16 March 2024 | Contact schools for waiting list information |
| March to August 2024 | Places allocated from waiting lists |
| May to July 2024 | Appeals heard by independent appeal panels |
| September 2024 | Start secondary school |