Educated out of cohort for transfer to secondary school
The admission outside normal age group
Parents must consider the implications of an earlier or later transfer as headteachers of primary/secondary schools are not required to continue to keep the child out of their year group and may decide to later educate the child in the correct year.
This information should be read in conjunction with the statutory guidance, specifically the School Admissions Code 2021, which came into force on 1 September 2021.
General principles
Parents may request that their child is admitted to a year group outside their normal age group. This may include a request for a child to be admitted to a year group above or below their chronological age.
Requests will be considered on the circumstances of each case and in the best interests of the child, in accordance with the School Admissions Code. A decision to agree admission outside the normal age group is a decision about the year group in which an application will be considered. It is not an offer of a place at a particular school.
Where parents are applying for Lewisham community schools, a request for admission outside the normal age group should be made to Lewisham Council as the admission authority.
If parents are also applying for schools for which Lewisham Council is not the admission authority, such as academies, voluntary aided schools, foundation schools or free schools, they should make a separate request to the admission authority for each of those schools. This is because each admission authority is responsible for deciding whether a child should be admitted outside their normal age group.
Information to support a request
Parents should submit a written request explaining why they consider admission outside the child’s normal age group to be in the child’s best interests.
Parents may provide any information they wish the admission authority to consider. This may include information about:
a. the child’s academic, social and emotional development;
b. the child’s medical history or health needs;
c. whether the child has previously been educated outside their normal age group;
d. whether the child was born prematurely and may naturally have fallen into a different age group if born at the expected time;
e. the views of professionals involved in the child’s education, care or treatment; and
f. any other information the parent considers relevant.
Parents are not expected to obtain evidence they do not already have.
Requests will be considered whether or not they are accompanied by professional evidence, and a request will not be refused solely because professional evidence has not been provided.
Secondary transfer at the normal point of entry
Parents may request admission outside the normal age group at the point of transfer to secondary school. This may include:
a. a request for a child who has been educated below their chronological age group in primary school to continue to be educated below their chronological age group at secondary school; or
b. a request for a child to be admitted to Year 7 earlier than their normal age group.
Where a child has been educated below their chronological age group in primary school, parents may instead choose for the child to apply for secondary transfer in their chronological age group. This may mean that the child moves from Year 5 to Year 7 and does not complete Year 6. This is not a request for admission outside the normal age group, but parents should consider the educational implications and may wish to discuss this with the child’s current school.
Where parents are requesting admission outside the normal age group at secondary transfer, they should submit both:
a. an application for a secondary school place; and
b. a written request for admission outside the normal age group, at the same time and before the closing date for secondary transfer applications for the year group in which they are seeking admission.
Where the request is for a child who has been educated below their chronological age group to continue to be educated below their chronological age group at secondary school, this will usually mean making the request by 31 October when the child is in Year 5, rather than Year 6. This is so that the admission authority can decide the year group in which the application should be considered and parents can make an informed decision before Secondary National Offer Day.
Where the request is for early admission to Year 7, parents should make the request before the closing date for applications for the Year 7 cohort they wish their child to join.
The admission authority will determine the request and notify parents of the outcome in time for them to make an informed decision about their child’s secondary transfer application.
Approval of a request does not guarantee a place at a particular school. Where a request is agreed, the child’s application will be processed as part of the main admissions round for the agreed year group and will be considered in accordance with the published admission arrangements and oversubscription criteria. The application will not be given lower priority because the child is being admitted outside their normal age group.
Where a request for admission outside the normal age group at secondary transfer is refused, parents will need to decide how they wish to proceed. Depending on the circumstances, this may include:
a. applying for, or accepting, a place In Year 7 in the child’s chronological age group;
b. where the child has been educated below their chronological age group, keeping the child with their existing cohort and making an in-year application for admission to the relevant secondary year group at a later date; or
c. where the request was for early admission to Year 7, applying for secondary transfer in the child’s normal admissions round.
Where refusal of a request would mean that a child may miss a year of education, for example by moving from Year 5 to Year 7 or from Year 6 to Year 8, the admission authority will take this into account when considering whether admission outside the normal age group is in the child’s best interests.