School place offers

How will I find out which school my child has been allocated?

All applicants who applied by the deadline of 31 October 2020 will be notified of their school place offer on Monday 1 March 2021 .   

If you applied online, you will receive your school place offer by email. Alternatively, you can log into your Citizen Portal account and view your offer. Postal offer letters will be sent out to all applicants.

If you were unable to apply online and received help with making an application, you will receive a postal offer letter only. Decisions will not be given over the telephone and there are no facilities to pick up a letter from our offices. Offer letters should arrive no later than Wednesday 3 March 2021.

What happens after I receive the offer of a secondary school place for my child?

If you have been offered a place at your highest preferred school, you do not need to do anything further at this stage. If you have not secured a place at your highest preference, your child has been added to the waiting list(s) for these school(s). Please see more information on waiting lists shown further below.

Within the next few weeks, you will hear from your offered school with further details including transition dates. Your child will need to start at their new school from the beginning of the Autumn term or the school place may be withdrawn.

Can I appeal for a place at a preferred school?

You can appeal online for one of your preferred schools. The deadline for lodging an appeal is Monday 30 March 2021. Appeals lodged after this date may not be heard until after the start of the new school year.

If you have been refused a place at any of the following schools and wish to lodge an appeal, you will need to contact them directly as these schools arrange their own appeals.

• English Martyrs Catholic School
• Madani Boys’ School
• Madani Girls’ School
• St Paul’s Catholic School

If you have been refused a place at a county school and wish to lodge an appeal, you will need to contact Leicestershire County Council.

Understanding waiting lists

Waiting lists are held in order of the admissions criteria and are maintained until July 2021. If a place becomes available, it will be offered to the first child on the waiting list. We are not allowed to distinguish between on-time and late applications when maintaining waiting lists so a child can move down the list when a child being added to the list meets a higher admissions rule.

You can ask for your child’s name to be removed from a school’s waiting list at any time.

 The following schools maintain their own waiting lists and you will need to contact them directly for waiting list positions:

• English Martyrs Catholic School
• Madani Boys’ School
• Madani Girls’ School
• St Paul’s Catholic School

What happens if my application is late?

If your application is submitted after 31 October 2020, it will be classed as late, and there is a much lower chance of securing a place at one of your preferred schools. 

Those who applied on time will be allocated a school place before late applications are considered.

If you have an exceptional reason for applying late, and if the application is received before 15 January 2021, along with the evidence described below, we may consider it as if it was received on time.

You must supply independent supporting evidence of this reason, for example a solicitor’s letter confirming exchange of contracts or an unexpected hospital stay where you are the sole carer.

If we agree that your reasons are exceptional, we will consider it as an on-time application otherwise it will be treated as late and we will write to you to confirm this.