The procedure for applying for secondary school places for children transferring from primary and junior schools to secondary education.
Secondary admissions timescale - September 2026
- July 2025 - Admissions and Transport Team inform schools of the number of children in their normal area.
- From 4 September 2025 - Information on application process distributed to all Y6 children and school prospectuses available in primary schools.
- Monday 8 September 2025 - Online and telephone application facilities open.
- From 9 September 2025 - Preferences start to be recorded on Admissions System and initial information available to schools on SAM.
- Midnight 31 October 2025 - Closing date for submission of applications.
- By Friday 21 November 2025 - Admissions and Transport Team send other Local Authorities details of Derbyshire children who have expressed preferences for their schools.
- By Friday 28 November 2025 - Admissions and Transport Team to have received from other Local Authorities details of their children who have expressed preferences for Derbyshire schools.
- By Monday 1 December 2025 - Admissions and Transport Team will have released all preference details to own admission authority schools where assessments are done by the school.
- By Monday 8 December 2025 - Admissions and Transport Team will have released preference details for checking by own admission authority schools where assessments are done by the Admissions and Transport Team.
- By Friday 12 December 2025 - Own admission authority school rankings to be complete on SAM, checked and confirmed to the Admissions and Transport Team. Schools should ensure that a Governors meeting to consider preferences is scheduled to meet this deadline.
- By Wednesday 17 December 2025 - Own admission authority schools where we assess to have confirmed their agreement to our assessments. Schools should ensure that a Governors meeting to consider preferences is scheduled in order to meet this deadline.
- By Friday 9 January 2026 - Admissions and Transport Team send to other Local Authorities potential offers of places in Derbyshire schools.
- By Monday 12 January 2026 - Admissions and Transport Team to receive from other Local Authorities potential offers of places in their schools.
- By Monday 23 February 2026 - Allocation process complete. Admissions and Transport Team to release details of the children to be offered places (subject to receipt of information from neighbouring Local Authorities). This information is confidential until National Offer Day.
- Monday 2 March 2026 - National Offer Day. Decision available online and letters posted 2nd class where appropriate.
- Monday 2 March 2026 - Waiting lists for all oversubscribed schools established and administered by the Admissions and Transport Team.
- Friday 27 March 2026 - Appeals to be requested by this date (legal requirement 20 school days from Offer Day).
- April 2026 onwards - Own admission authority schools to inform Admissions and Transport Team of the outcome of appeals to the independent appeal panels. Where appeals have been successful, the Admissions and Transport Team will deal with any resulting movement.
- Monday 15 June 2026 - Main round of appeals to be heard by this date.
- From Monday 7 September 2026 - Schools to notify the Admissions and Transport Team of any pupil allocated a place who does not take up the place offered or who leaves whilst the waiting list is maintained.
- 31 December 2026 - waiting lists cease to be maintained by Admissions and Transport Team.